https://summit.upfront.com/home daily 1.0 2026-03-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/2f954a75-367e-496e-a109-a57d205142ef/diego-rivera-5ozgGaLw0Sc-unsplash.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/3a5ef894-3593-4d60-849f-51d884f1e00a/UV_Logomark_White.png Home - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://summit.upfront.com/logistics daily 0.75 2026-02-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1726005092514-I3FQBUBVGC3DH6X7H96F/valentin-g-SWI9UBIh8uk-unsplash.jpg Logistics https://summit.upfront.com/day-0-speakers daily 0.75 2026-02-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770330015166-9MBI9PP1VX1X97SFRP5X/image-asset.png Day 0 Speakers - Murali Akella Murali is a veteran payments operator who has spent over 20 years designing and running global payments and FX infrastructure across Asia, the US, and Europe. Formerly at Wise and Standard Chartered, he has built production-grade systems inside regulated banks and fintechs at scale. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770330015166-9MBI9PP1VX1X97SFRP5X/image-asset.png Day 0 Speakers - Murali Akella Murali is a veteran payments operator who has spent over 20 years designing and running global payments and FX infrastructure across Asia, the US, and Europe. Formerly at Wise and Standard Chartered, he has built production-grade systems inside regulated banks and fintechs at scale. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1736898519665-0AJE8E3GK36T09AT4KYX/Dan+Burton.png Day 0 Speakers - Dan Burton Dan Burton is the Founder and CEO of Zeitview. Previously, Dan served as a Marine Corps Infantry Officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, worked at Goldman Sachs, and attended NYU and HBS. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770330602050-Z8CV1BHK8U5K9CZUFVU2/image-asset.jpeg Day 0 Speakers - Alexa Baggio Alexa Baggio is the Co-Founder and CEO of CVRD Health, where she’s focused on modernizing employee benefits in highly regulated environments. She’s spent her career building and scaling various companies across benefits, healthcare, and workplace innovation, with a focus on simplifying complex systems and designing tools that actually work for the people who use them. Prior to CVRD, Alexa founded PERKSCon, Showcase (acquired in 2023), and Kolective - a national HR consulting network. Her experience working closely with employers, brokers, and operators gave her a firsthand view into how outdated benefits systems drive unnecessary cost and complexity and shaped CVRD’s mission. Alexa holds a B.A. with honors from Brown University and regularly serves as a board member, advisor, and guest lecturer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770329883506-ODNBI337MCVCXL4GBIN0/image-asset.jpeg Day 0 Speakers - Ivan Burazin Ivan Burazin co-founded Codeanywhere, a pioneer in cloud development, back in 2009. Concurrently, he established Shift, a premier developer conference in Europe, which was later acquired by Infobip—a global communications cloud giant—in 2021. Following the acquisition, Ivan served on the executive board of this 4,000-person company and as the Chief Developer Experience Officer, where he oversaw global developer-oriented operations. In 2023, Ivan co-founded Daytona, a fast-growing open-source platform addressing the limitations of AI coding agents by enabling them to programmatically and securely interact with runtime environments. Backed by $7M in funding, Daytona empowers developers—from startups to Fortune 500 companies—to utilize agents to their full potential. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1735863154350-MF7E6L7GWPIGW99EFZZ3/image-asset.jpeg Day 0 Speakers - Caroline Clark Caroline is the CEO and cofounder of Arcade. She is a big believer in the product led growth economy, and Arcade is enabling that. Before Arcade, she was a VC at Sequoia, a marketer at Atlassian, and graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Princeton. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770330776067-GN9UKMUSWW1VNDILOBH2/Augustus+Doricko+Headshot.png Day 0 Speakers - Augustus Doricko Augustus Doricko is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rainmaker Technology Corporation, a California-based technology company advancing the science of precipitation enhancement through advanced drones and next-generation radar systems. A Thiel Fellow and attendee of the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Doricko leads Rainmaker’s mission to address global water scarcity and declining snowback by enabling reliable, data-driven weather modification to support agriculture, ecosystems, and regional resilience. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770330873039-STGUU51OX11COTXGYG6F/Gregg+Johnson+Headshot.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Gregg Johnson Gregg Johnson is CEO of Invoca, the trusted data + AI platform that empowers marketing, commerce, and contact center teams to drive efficient revenue growth. With a product-first mindset and a strong focus on customers, Gregg has scaled Invoca beyond $100M in ARR and established the company as a leader in AI technology. He brings two decades of experience building category-defining software products and go-to-market engines. At Salesforce, he led the Marketing Cloud’s social portfolio, integrating over $1B in acquisitions, and ran the product teams on Salesforce Chatter. Earlier roles at Boston Consulting Group and Silicon Valley startups shaped his practical approach to innovation and growth. Gregg graduated from Stanford University and holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1574098851058-T1DQDUWZ24XU8YKXLPN4/DanaKibler.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Dana Kibler Dana is responsible for finance and investment operations at Upfront. Dana joined the firm in 2004 from The Walt Disney Company’s Corporate Finance group, where she was primarily responsible for the evaluation and execution of structured finance transactions. Prior to Disney, Dana worked in investment banking for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and then Credit Suisse First Boston. While in business school, Dana worked for the private equity firm Shamrock Capital Advisors. Dana received her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management where she was a Price Center Venture Fellow. She received a BS in Finance from the University of Arizona. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770330934896-HE9XEQCOUN4U69Y14A41/Alex+Kiam+Headshot.jpeg Day 0 Speakers - Alex Kiam Alex Kiam is the founder and CEO of Neon, the app that pays you to talk on the phone. Alex grew up in New York City and from an early age was fascinated with how to derive value from data. In college, he started a personal trading account that significantly outperformed market indices. He used “alternative data,” including poll numbers, Twitter likes, and even soccer tournament schedules, to predict and profitably trade on events like Brexit, the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and various quarterly earnings reports. He started his career as a hedge fund quant at Eminence Capital, a $7 billion fund based in New York City. At Eminence, Alex continued to focus on ways to leverage alternative data to make more accurate investment decisions. After attending business school, Alex led special projects at Protege, an AI training data vendor, where he gained firsthand exposure to how training data is sourced, evaluated, and used across the AI ecosystem. While Protege did not work with conversational audio, the role gave Alex a broad view into the growing importance of high-quality data for model development. At the same time, Alex had been thinking independently about conversational data, an idea he began developing prior to and during business school, as voice-based interfaces and AI systems became more prevalent. He observed that across the industry, many companies profit from people’s data without meaningful transparency, consent, or compensation. Believing there was an opportunity to build a more consumer-aligned model, he left Protege to found Neon. Neon is built on the idea that users should explicitly opt in, understand how their data is used, and be paid for it, creating a system that puts consumers at the center of the AI data economy. Since launching in September, Neon has experienced historic viral growth, becoming the #2 free app on the App Store within 10 days of launch and growing to over half a million users. Neon recently raised a $25M hybrid seed led by Lightspeed (equity) and Upper90 (credit), with participation from Upfront Ventures and numerous others, following a pre-seed led by Upfront. Neon has secured contracts with top AI labs and has expanded to a team of 14. Alex received an AB in Applied Math from Harvard, an MPhil in Economics from Oxford, and an MBA from Stanford. He is a lifelong Jets fan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331082050-1SAKGG7ZBNR66WA38KXE/John+Malsbury+Headshot.png Day 0 Speakers - John Malsbury John Malsbury is Co-Founder and CEO of AnySignal, where he builds systems that connect people and technology. From advanced RF and signal processing to the culture and vision that enable high-performing teams to thrive. John spent nearly a decade at SpaceX, leading and contributing to mission-critical communications, DSP, and FPGA systems across Falcon, Dragon, Starship, Starlink, and deep-space programs. He founded AnySignal to bring that same rigor, speed, and clarity of purpose to national security and space infrastructure. Earlier in his career, John helped shape the modern software-defined radio ecosystem. As an RF and Communications Architect at Spire, he developed and deployed SDR systems for the company’s first satellites, directly enabling early on-orbit success and a subsequent Series A raise. At Ettus Research, he managed the USRP product line, blending deep technical expertise with product strategy, go-to-market execution, and customer engagement, driving sustained growth while supporting applications ranging from satellite communications to radar and signals intelligence. He’s always open to thoughtful conversations about technology and leadership. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1574098840089-N02K0PQGVGC9HE51T2I8/MarkSuster+alt.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Mark Suster Mark Suster is the Managing Partner at Upfront. He previously was the founder & CEO of two successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was sold to Salesforce.com where Mark became VP, Products. Prior to being a founder, Mark was a software developer at Accenture where he lived and worked in Europe, Japan and the U.S. Mark is a graduate of UCSD and has an MBA from the University of Chicago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331158940-NIHQVSN3RRSQV6009YSP/Nico+Simko+Headshot.JPG Day 0 Speakers - Nico Simko As a Swiss undergraduate student at Harvard College tutoring economics for pocket money, Nico Simko found himself baffled by the inefficiency of the traditional two-week pay cycle. He was surprised to find that payment arrived via a mailed paper check. Short on cash for weekend activities, he'd often find himself visiting his mailbox two or three times a day, hoping his latest remuneration had arrived. While getting paid was an inconvenience, finding a place to deposit his wages felt like an impossibility. It took months for Simko to receive a social security number and further weeks to open a bank account successfully. Was this the norm? Simko wondered. If it had been this tricky for him as a Harvard economics student, how hard was it for someone without his advantages? Several years later, after working in JPMorgan's payments division on M&A and partnerships, this thought would eventually lead to the genesis of Clair. Founded in 2020 by Nico Simko and Alex Kostecki, Clair made its public debut in 2021 with an industry-leading on-demand pay tool. Nico has since been recognized by American Banker as Innovator of the Year (2024) and by Forbes for 30 under 30 (2024). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331254834-6YV0F3F8VDDJ7QXDCOL0/Michael+Smayda+Headshot.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Michael Smayda Dr. Michael G. Smayda is founder and CEO at Fortastra Corporation. Previously, he was co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Hermeus Corporation, a venture-backed high-speed aircraft company, where he led internal product development as well as external business development, requirements generation, and congressional engagement. Prior to Hermeus, Michael spent 5 years at SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle working aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics for booster entry, descent and landing, design criteria, systems engineering, and hardware design for Falcon Heavy. Dr. Smayda has a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia and a BS in the same from Cornell University. He lives in Hermosa Beach, CA. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331321858-0WB603MSCBVA7191TIQZ/Ali+Tarhini+Headshot.png Day 0 Speakers - Ali Tarhini Ali is a fintech operator and investor, having spent 15 years building and backing core financial infrastructure. As a founding member of Point72 Ventures and a leader at Techstars Fintech, he has supported companies like DriveWealth, ZeroHash, and Chainalysis from inception. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331382463-2Q47743KKZ1E2DIARRBN/Brandon+Terry+Headshot.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Brandon Terry Brandon Terry is the Co-Founder and CEO of Village, where he's building the AI Care Orchestration Layer for Pediatrics to make complex pediatric care more connected. A seasoned product executive with a track record of scaling companies through hypergrowth, Brandon previously served as SVP of Product at ID.me, Shippo, and Procore Technologies—where he helped grow the construction tech leader $2M to $400M in ARR as it transformed into the category winner. He also serves as an Operating Adviser at Bessemer Venture Partners, advising portfolio company CEOs and product leaders on scaling their organizations. Brandon holds a B.A. in Business Economics from UC Santa Barbara and is based in Los Angeles. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1705964896348-4EG0JUXPALUKMOK0MOOZ/image-asset.jpeg Day 0 Speakers - Aditi Maliwal Aditi Maliwal is a general partner at Upfront Ventures, investing in early stage companies across financial technology and enterprise software. Aditi partners with founders at their earliest stages of inception and supports them throughout the stages of company building. While at Upfront, she has partnered deeply in this way with Arcade, Clair, Renew, Stem, WriterAI and ZestAI amongst others. Before joining Upfront, Aditi was at Google, first on the Corporate Development team leading acquisitions across various sectors including AI, commerce and fintech, and then on the Next Billion Users team building products for users in emerging markets. Prior to Google she worked in early stage venture at Crosslink Capital where she invested in Chime, BetterUp, and PowerToFly among other companies. She began her career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, in the technology banking group. She has a B.A. from Stanford University. She has lived between Mumbai, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Singapore and San Francisco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331809322-YDRHT4OW9014IXTURRO9/StuartLander.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Stuart Lander Stuart joined the firm in April 2014 having spent 14 years in various operational roles at tech companies. He was previously CMO at CareerArc, a social recruiting platform and CMO at Internships.com, the world's largest internships marketplace which was acquired by Chegg. He was also COO at BuildOnline, a SaaS document management company that was acquired by SWORD Group. Earlier in his career, Stuart was an attorney with the international law firm Herbert Smith, where he worked on M&A and corporate finance transactions. Stuart received a first class honors degree in International History and Politics from the University of Leeds and a law degree with distinction from the College of Law in London, England. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1738269155529-TNSQHDN9W0QYJG18O5BS/Nina+Sen.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Nina Sen Nina runs financial operations and analytics at Upfront. Before joining Upfront, Nina was CFO at Omaze, a venture backed company innovating at the intersection of gaming and charitable fundraising. Before Omaze, Nina was VP Finance at TOMS, which sold to Bain Capital in 2014. Nina started her career in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs. She received an AB in Economics from Princeton and an MBA from The Wharton School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770331739675-IWNVOPP55Q0X4YNQPWDO/Mark+Suster+Low+Res.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Mark Suster Mark Suster is a general partner at Upfront. He previously was the founder & CEO of two successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was sold to Salesforce.com where Mark became VP, Products. Prior to being a founder, Mark was a software developer at Accenture where he lived and worked in Europe, Japan and the U.S. Mark is a graduate of UCSD and has an MBA from the University of Chicago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1574098904737-PB0OU5ROMJ7RYVSZU9GI/KevinZhang.jpg Day 0 Speakers - Kevin Zhang Kevin looks for interdisciplinary entrepreneurs solving big problems in healthcare and the life sciences. He's also a passionate gamer and invests in interactive media platforms, tools and content. Prior to joining Upfront in 2012, Kevin was at The Boston Consulting Group, where he advised on strategy, M&A and operations for technology, healthcare, and industrial goods clients in the US and Asia. Previously, Kevin worked at Verscend Technologies, a healthcare software startup in Boston, focusing on data analytics product development selling into payers and providers. Kevin studied Biology at Harvard College. https://summit.upfront.com/speakers-1 daily 0.75 2026-02-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477068624-DMZUDHPABF293DR803NV/Baiju+Bhatt+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Baiju Bhatt Baiju Bhatt is the Founder and CEO of Aetherflux. Baiju’s lifelong passion for space began in childhood, inspired by his father's work as a research scientist at Langley Research Center with NASA. At Stanford, he earned his B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mathematics. He later co-founded Robinhood and served as co-CEO until November 2020. Today, Robinhood is a publicly-traded company with more than 20 million customers. In 2024, Baiju left his day-to-day role at Robinhood to focus on Aetherflux. He continues to serve on Robinhood’s Board of Directors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477068624-DMZUDHPABF293DR803NV/Baiju+Bhatt+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Baiju Bhatt Baiju Bhatt is the Founder and CEO of Aetherflux. Baiju’s lifelong passion for space began in childhood, inspired by his father's work as a research scientist at Langley Research Center with NASA. At Stanford, he earned his B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mathematics. He later co-founded Robinhood and served as co-CEO until November 2020. Today, Robinhood is a publicly-traded company with more than 20 million customers. In 2024, Baiju left his day-to-day role at Robinhood to focus on Aetherflux. He continues to serve on Robinhood’s Board of Directors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770487985835-S58VTC1LP13JD5NCQKQQ/Nikita-headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Nikita Bier Nikita Bier is Head of Product at X (formerly Twitter). He is a sought after advisor to consumer technology companies for his expertise in growth and virality. He previously founded Gas, a viral social network acquired by Discord. Before that, he founded TBH, a social network acquired by Meta. He currently advises the Solana Foundation and works as a venture partner to Lightspeed Ventures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477378515-YPUZ7FSDBDFY5HFU3WZ5/Rob+Black+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Rob Black Rob Black is the Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Economic Development Department, leading the state’s efforts to compete in the next generation of innovation-driven industries. Born and raised in Lovington, New Mexico, he is focused on building a resilient, high-wage economy that delivers long-term opportunity for families across the state. As Cabinet Secretary, Black has overseen the launch of a Site Readiness program designed to accelerate business attraction, secured New Mexico’s first fusion energy company, and supported the creation of a $25 million quantum venture studio, and other key efforts that have helped propel New Mexico into the top tier nationally for manufacturing and high-wage job growth. Black brings more than 25 years of experience across the public and private sectors and holds degrees from the University of New Mexico and UC Law San Francisco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1740164683194-IF4TXZO9BG2SJFBBEFT3/will.i.am.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - will.i.am As a creative artist, tech entrepreneur, and the Founder & CEO of FYI (a Web 3.0 AI messenger) will.i.am has been recognized by a CLIO Award, an Emmy Award, nine Grammy Awards, the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award, A TIME 100 Impact Award, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, and an Honorary Fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). In February 2024 he joined an exclusive group of music artists who performed at two Super Bowl Halftime Shows (2011-Dallas, 2024-Las Vegas). He is simultaneously a creative innovation advisor, futurist, multi-platinum Grammy-winning music artist, producer, entertainer, (Coach on “THE VOICE” UK edition for 13 seasons; Host of “THE FYI SHOW” radio program on SiriusXM), and a tech entrepreneur as part of his cross-disciplinary career. He invests in and develops businesses in a range of sectors including the FYI Web 3.0 creativity & productivity tool, automotive, consumer tech, fashion, food & beverage, software (AI, Natural Language Understanding, Voice Computing) and telecom. His early work as Futurist and market opportunity spotter was with Beats Electronics. As a founding equity stakeholder in the company, will.i.am was instrumental in helping to transform Beats By Dre™ into a global consumer electronics brand. Beats Electronics was purchased by Apple in 2014 for US$3 billion. will.i.am teams with the world’s leading companies helping them to embrace future technologies, what’s next in cultural trends and develop new business initiatives. Organizations he has collaborated with includes Apple, Atom Bank, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Telekom, Epic Records, Expo 2020, Formula 1, Honeywell, Intel, LG, Majid Al Futtaim, Marvel Comics, Mercedes-AMG, Microsoft, Pepsi, Salesforce, SiriusXM and Uproxx Studios. In 2023, will.i.am switched up how and where music is enjoyed by forging an innovative collaboration with Formula 1, the world’s largest motor sports organization. He is their first Artist in Residence and serves as a Curator of the program. Two F1-inspired tracks have been released, “THE FORMULA” and “LET’S GO.” What drives will.i.am’s entrepreneurial spirit in innovation and technology is his work as a philanthropist, encourages inner-city, disadvantaged youth to apply themselves in STEAM fields so they can get prepared for an AI, autonomous, robotic and highly technical tomorrow. An advocate for lifelong learning, will.i.am returned to school and completed Harvard Business Schools’ Owner/President Management Executive Education Program in October 2024. His i.am Angel Foundation supports STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) education programs for more than 14,000 disadvantaged youth in grades K – 12 in Los Angeles, including the i.am College Track after-school tutoring center and college scholarship program, the Boyle Heights STEM Magnet High School, and hundreds of after-school robotics clubs in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District and FIRST robotics. He also sits on the boards of directors of College Track, FIRST Global and the Smithsonian Institution Science Education Center’s Ad Hoc Committee For Innovation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477618802-NGAI5AHUVNYDHYNBQWTC/Will+Bruey+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Will Bruey Will is CEO and Co-Founder of Varda Space Industries, a microgravity-enabled life sciences company whose reentry capsules leverage the unique environment of microgravity in low-Earth orbit. Prior to Varda, Will co-founded a small venture fund called Also Capital and served as Director of Global Equities Technology at Bank of America. He was the lead avionics engineer at SpaceX and flew Dragon on eight missions to the International Space Station. Will holds a B.S. in Applied Physics from Cornell and a master's in Systems Engineering. He was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and his hobbies include flying and maintaining his Cozy MK4 aircraft. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477724709-3X10NTB76LVE43AJ04TT/Cassidy%2C+Chris+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Chris Cassidy Chris Cassidy is the Director of Private Equity and Venture Capital at the New Mexico State Investment Council, the state's sovereign wealth fund. His career at the SIC has focused on enhancing the state's investment strategies to benefit economic growth and innovation. Prior to the SIC, Chris was an executive at Glencore International AG and an investment banker in the Financial Sponsors Group at Lehman Brothers. Chris graduated summa cum laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is a CFA charterholder. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477800654-W1I6VY7QK5G13MU3UPY2/Ian+Cinnamon+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Ian Cinnamon Ian Cinnamon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Apex, a high-rate configurable satellite bus platform manufacturer named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025. Backed by over $500 million from the world’s best investors, Apex’s first satellite bus set a world record as the fastest cleansheet design to production spacecraft operating in space. Focused on meeting the needs of the rapidly expanding space industry and advancing critical national security missions like Golden Dome, Apex provides scalable platforms to both the commercial and government sectors. Apex's Los Angeles production facility can deliver satellite buses to customers in weeks rather than the industry standard of months or years, with the capacity to produce over 200 buses per year at full scale. Prior to his work with Apex, Ian founded Synapse, a company specializing in artificial intelligence for security and defense. Ian led the company through acquisition by Palantir. Earlier in his career, Ian co-founded Superlabs, which was sold to Zynga, where he served as Director of Product after the acquisition. Ian is a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree and an alumnus of Y Combinator. He received his B.S. from MIT and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477879498-E396FIDU1I2J36GDJDJ2/Tom+Freston+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Tom Freston Tom Freston is the author of the bestselling memoir, UNPLUGGED: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. He is a cofounder of MTV and the former CEO of Viacom, where he oversaw Paramount Pictures. After launching a successful clothing export company out of Afghanistan and India, Freston transitioned into the media landscape, helping found MTV and bringing it to international fame in more than 150 countries. Before his Viacom roles, he ran MTV Networks for seventeen years, overseeing Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, and other legendary networks. He is a board member of Imagine Entertainment and a board member emeritus of both the American Museum of Natural History and the think tank New America. He currently serves as Board Chair of The ONE Campaign, an anti-poverty advocacy organization focusing on Africa. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1739562964945-FSL5D8FRWBY8QBXB4M1K/Prem+Akkaraju+-+Headshot.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Prem Akkaraju Prem Akkaraju is the CEO of Stability AI, best known for its groundbreaking generative AI model, Stable Diffusion. In 2023, Stability AI was named one of "TIME100 Most Influential Companies.” Stable Diffusion models have been downloaded over 269 million times and generated over 80% of AI images online in 2023. In 2024, legendary filmmaker and visual effects pioneer James Cameron invested in Stability AI and joined its Board of Directors. Previously, Prem was the CEO of Weta Digital, the Academy Award-winning film production and visual effects company behind films like Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, and The Lord of the Rings, generating over $22 billion in global box office revenue. At Weta, he founded Weta Cloud, a cloud-based film production pipeline that was later sold to Unity Software for $1.625 billion.
Additionally, Prem was an Executive Producer on the Oscar-nominated film, The White Tiger. He has an MBA from Columbia University and lives in Los Angeles with his wife Mary Ann and two kids. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478072631-J1GTNA6SAEI65E35OE6F/Burkay+Gur+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Burkay Gur Burkay Gur is the Co-Founder and CEO of fal, the generative media company. fal was born out of a shared passion for the intersection of arts and AI and a desire to address the challenges in AI infrastructure. Operating at the forefront of AI Inference in generative media, fal empowers developers to create the next generation of creativity tools! Burkay previously led Machine Learning at Coinbase and is a graduate from MIT. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478664890-NTQASLV3R7TL6GA4ND5C/Thomas+Laffont+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Thomas Laffont Thomas Laffont is the Co-Founder of Coatue, one of the world’s largest technology investment platforms. He leads the firm’s private investment platforms across both early-stage and growth, partnering with some of the most enduring and impactful companies of the last two decades. Thomas began his career at the Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, where he represented artists in Motion Picture and Television. Thomas holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Yale College and lives in California. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478187127-PZR5WK3T4BSLV4QXGHEV/Grant+Lee+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Grant Lee Grant Lee is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gamma, an AI-powered presentation and website tool that has scaled to 50 million customers and $50M ARR with fewer than 50 employees. A Stanford-trained engineer with a finance and operations background, Grant was inspired to found Gamma by his experience creating countless slide decks. He previously served as COO of ClearBrain (acquired by Amplitude) and CFO of Optimizely. Forbes recently named Gamma a Next Billion-Dollar Startup. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478420598-5FNBJFII4XQI9U0R95ZJ/Garrett+Lord+Headshot.JPG Day 1 Speakers - Garrett Lord Garrett Lord is the Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake, the career network for the AI economy. Since founding the company in 2014, Garrett has grown Handshake into the platform of choice for over 20 million job seekers, 1,600 US universities, and 1 million employers—from Fortune 500 to federal agencies, school districts to startups, healthcare systems to small businesses. In 2025, Garrett launched Handshake AI, which connects domain experts on the Handshake network with leading AI labs to provide the human judgment necessary for developing and evaluating frontier AI models. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1738610204996-FGJHLGNF26FLV2LJXWZ4/image-asset.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Prem Akkaraju Previously, Prem was the CEO of Weta Digital, the Academy Award-winning film production and visual effects company behind films like Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, and The Lord of the Rings, generating over $22 billion in global box office revenue. At Weta, he founded Weta Cloud, a cloud-based film production pipeline that was later sold to Unity Software for $1.625 billion.
Additionally, Prem was an Executive Producer on the Oscar-nominated film, The White Tiger. He has an MBA from Columbia University and lives in Los Angeles with his wife Mary Ann and two kids. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478503650-KRRA3ITX2208MNERK2LZ/Dhar+Mann+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Dhar Mann Dhar Mann is the #1 digital scripted storyteller in the world. A mission-driven entrepreneur, writer, producer, father, husband and media personality, Dhar is the founder of Dhar Mann Studios (DMS), the digital scripted studio reaching over 143 million followers with purpose-driven, inspirational content that makes a positive impact on people across the world. The company produces five half-hour episodes of scripted dramas every week that resonate with viewers of all ages. Dhar Mann Studios’ content currently averages 42M daily views across platforms. With a 125,000 SF, three-stage production facility in Burbank and over 200 team members, DMS is the largest creator-built studio bridging legacy Hollywood and the creator economy. Dhar has been recognized by Forbes as the #2 Top Creator both in 2024 and 2025 and by Time on their inaugural TIME100 Creators List in 2025. He has also been recognized for several awards, including being nominated for Favorite Male Creator at the 2024 and 2025 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards and winning various Telly Awards and Shorty Awards, most recently being honored for “Studio of the Year” at the 2025 Shorty Awards. In 2022, he was also nominated for Best Scripted Series at the Streamy Awards and acknowledged by YouTube as the 2nd Top Creator on YouTube in 2021. Beyond content creation, Dhar is passionate about making meaningful impact on communities with real-world resources, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to non-profits, charities and marginalized communities. Organizations supported include Los Angeles Food Bank, TeamSeas, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Angel Studios, Special Olympics, the Dream Foundation, the Burbank Police department, and ARFID Awareness, among other causes that tie back directly to themes in his content. In addition to Dhar’s personal donations, Dhar Mann Studios has also set up many videos as fundraisers to help support these groups. Alongside Dhar Mann Studios’ scripted premium content, Dhar’s fans can engage with him on a personal level as a dad, husband and entrepreneur on his Instagram and TikTok accounts. Dhar's personal content blends videos of his kids, along with relatable relationship content with his wife, well-known lifestyle influencer and co-founder of Dhar Mann Studios, Laura Avila. Dhar has collaborated with iconic brands and companies such as MTV, Instagram, Universal and Amazon. His story, business, and life tips have been shared on Forbes, Business Insider, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg, and many more. Dhar resides in Los Angeles, CA. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770477253719-ULF6SU8L4QB4LL94IEIV/Sean+Atkins+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Sean Atkins Sean Atkins has a proven ability to build high-value businesses across diverse industries. Over the past 20 years, he has been a pioneer at the intersection of consumer, media, and tech, driving transformative initiatives at several of the world’s leading brands, including MTV, Discovery, HBO, Bertelsmann, Jellysmack, Yahoo!, and Disney. He now serves as CEO of Dhar Mann Studios, the digital scripted studio reaching over 143M followers with purpose-driven, inspirational content that makes a positive impact on people across the world. One of the fastest-growing independent digital media companies, Atkins oversees over 200 team members at Dhar Mann Studios as well as the company’s 125,000 SF production space in Los Angeles. He also launched and leads DMS’ creator-services business, 5th Quarter Agency, which supports its creator clients to generate more than six figures per month of incremental revenue. As an entrepreneur, Sean launched one of the first ad-tech firms, a television startup that achieved a nine-figure exit, and has raised $1 billion in financing. He has successfully built several $100M+ businesses across consumer internet, the creator economy, ad tech, ed tech, OTT/streaming, e-commerce, podcasting, and licensing. As President of Jellysmack, Sean led revenue, go-to-market strategies, customer engagement, brand sales, content teams, and new business initiatives to build the #1 globally recognized creator economy brand. At Jellysmack, he orchestrated product launches that expanded the product line from a single offering to a diverse portfolio, driving over $200 million in revenue growth. He served as CEO of the Digital Video Group for Bertelsmann’s €6.5 billion RTL Group, where he restructured his division by combining four businesses to optimize the European market and drive a 30% year-over-year increase in top-line revenue, becoming the #1 digital video company by traffic. While President of MTV, Sean reversed five years of audience decline, restructured the business to free up $100 million in operating costs, and created a new digital line of business that achieved a $40 million revenue run rate in less than 18 months. Earlier, as Chief Digital Officer for Discovery Communications, he transformed the digital business by investing in the first Creator Economy companies and developing Discovery+. In prior roles at Discovery, Sean oversaw digital business development, Discovery Studios-West, and consumer products. His background also includes launching HBO Go at HBO, serving as Head of Development and Programming at Yahoo!, launching the first online businesses at Warner Bros. and Disney, and serving as CEO of a venture-backed startup that developed one of the earliest SaaS ad tech platforms. Sean has served as an Advisor or Board Member for several organizations, including Evolution Media Partners, Bain Consulting, LinkedIn, WaveTV, Scribd, and Frequency. He earned his MBA with a focus on Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and his BA in Film/TV Production & Marketing from California Lutheran University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478751626-6QFZ5QBMGTQ7N8FIZ2QH/Scott+Nolan+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Scott Nolan Scott Nolan is the Founder and CEO of General Matter. General Matter is enriching uranium in America to fill the nuclear fuel gap and to power American leadership in AI, manufacturing, and energy production. General Matter is backed by Founders Fund, the first institutional investor in SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril and Meta (Facebook). Scott is also a partner at Founders Fund, where he has led engineering-driven investments across energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, biotechnology, aerospace and defense. Companies Scott has worked with include Neuralink, Crusoe Energy, Planet Labs, The Boring Company, Nubank, Quince, Impulse Space, and Radiant. Prior to Founders Fund, Scott was an early engineer at SpaceX where he helped develop the Merlin engine systems and Dragon capsule, and a consultant at Bain & Company where he worked with private equity clients. He earned his Masters and Bachelors degrees in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell and MBA from Stanford University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1737047618225-RYXHA08BY5DPMD7ROESV/image-asset.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Dr. Chelsea Clinton Chelsea Clinton is an advocate, storyteller, investor, mentor, teacher, and most importantly, mom to her three kids. As vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea works alongside the Foundation’s leadership and partners to improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for girls and women, create economic opportunity and growth, and inspire emerging leaders across the United States and around the world. A longtime public health advocate, Chelsea also serves as vice chair of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and uses her platform to increase awareness around issues such as vaccine hesitancy, childhood obesity, and health equity. In addition to her Foundation work, Chelsea is the co-founder of Metrodora Ventures, she teaches at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and has written several books for young adults and readers including the #1 New York Times bestselling She Persisted. Chelsea holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford, a Master of Public Health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and both a Master of Philosophy and a Doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478913791-LB26B3JB3HF0R7CUMA11/Guillermo+Rauch+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Guillermo Rauch Guillermo Rauch is the founder and CEO of Vercel, where he leads the company’s mission to enable the world to ship the best products. Originally from Argentina, Guillermo became a self-taught developer at the age of ten, and has been a passionate contributor to the open-source community ever since. He is the designer and co-author of Next.js, the world's most popular React framework, and is also the creator of socket.io and Mongoose.js. Before founding Vercel, Guillermo co-founded LearnBoost and Cloudup, where he served as CTO through its acquisition by Automattic in 2013. You can find him on X engaging with the developer community. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479121125-1G0ZCNXNEI5YIRA3AS4G/Dan+Roelker+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Dan Roelker Dan Roelker is co-founder and CEO of Observable Space, a venture-backed space technology company with over 1,000 enterprise and government customers worldwide. Observable Space is headquartered in Los Angeles with a 57-acre advanced manufacturing campus in Michigan. It is the world’s largest vertically integrated hardware and software company for on-planet and in-space observation and laser communication systems. Dan spent more than four years as VP of Software Engineering at SpaceX, where he led a team of 350 engineers who built the software for the company’s Falcon rockets, Dragon spacecraft, Starship platform, and Starlink satellite network. During Dan’s time at SpaceX, he led the software engineering team from the inaugural landing of the Falcon 9 rocket first stage through the launch of the first Starship and Starlink prototypes. Before joining SpaceX, Dan assembled and led a team of software engineers at Riot Games, which developed a new League of Legends client supporting over 100 million players worldwide. Dan started his career in cybersecurity as a founding developer at Sourcefire (later acquired by Cisco for $2.7B), where he wrote over half of the code for the open-source project Snort, an intrusion prevention system, and was granted six patents. From there, Dan was recruited by DARPA to lead cyber warfare research as one of its youngest program managers where he created a $350 million portfolio of advanced offensive computer security technologies. His flagship program, PlanX, was adopted as a formal program of record in the Department of Defense and Cyber Command. Dan was the VP of Engineering at OpenSea during its meteoric rise in the crypto wave of 2021. He also founded two hacker groups that were acquired by BAE Systems and Raytheon, and was a member of the winning hacker team at Defcon 17 CTF. In addition to leading Observable Space, Dan is currently a chief technology adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and an adviser at multiple venture capital firms and tech startups. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479184774-M1ACF1988MZY8SFN2685/Eric+Romo+Headshot.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Eric Romo Eric Romo is President and Chief Operating Officer of Impulse Space, the in-space mobility company founded by Tom Mueller. Beginning his career as one of the first propulsion engineering hires at SpaceX, he subsequently founded companies in the solar energy and virtual reality industries and spent four years as a Director at Facebook Reality Labs. Eric has a master's degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA, both from Stanford University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1771469945831-RVBNW06NYVEVGBB7T9MQ/Chris+Sacca+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Chris Sacca Chris Sacca is the co-founder of Lowercarbon Capital, backing the world’s most ambitious decarbonization solutions across energy, industrial materials, transportation, and advanced manufacturing, proving that hard-tech climate solutions are just good business. With his wife, Crystal, he also co-founded Lowercase Capital, known for early investments in Uber, Twitter, Instagram, Stripe, and other breakout successes, making it one of the most successful venture funds in history. Earlier, Chris led Special Initiatives at Google, where he founded the Access division and oversaw multi-billion-dollar energy and infrastructure projects. He lives in Montana with Crystal and their three daughters, working to, as he puts it, “unf**k the planet." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1673295717142-V62CXPKSAAXTVGXG6PRG/Adam+Bain+Headshot+2023.jpg Day 1 Speakers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770586328779-QIR6G0BL50KGC3QRK3ST/Jamie+.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Jamie Siminoff A lifelong inventor and mission-driven entrepreneur, Jamie Siminoff created the world’s first Wi-Fi video doorbell while working in his garage in 2011. That doorbell has since transformed into Ring, the whole-home security powerhouse that was acquired by Amazon in 2018 for over $1b. Prior to Ring, Jamie founded and sold several successful ventures, including PhoneTag, the world’s first voicemail-to-text company. Today Jamie focusses on a multitude of ventures through Shark Lake Explorations, his family office. Jamie holds his Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship from Babson College. When he’s not working, Jamie enjoys spending time with his wife, son, and two dogs Pancake and Biscuit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479375588-9TIE84A36A0VI253ZZ6P/Tuhin+Srivastava+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Tuhin Srivastava Tuhin Srivastava is the CEO and co-founder of Baseten, an AI inference platform. After starting his career in investment banking and later working as a machine learning engineer, he co-founded Baseten to make real-time AI faster and more efficient. The company has raised a $150M Series D and powers leading AI teams deploying models in production. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479449530-I11LYXHA9XWE4BKR3VVX/Cathie+Wood+Headshot.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Cathie Wood Cathie Wood registered ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”) as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2014. With over 40 years of experience identifying and investing in innovation, Cathie founded ARK to focus solely on disruptive innovation while adding new dimensions to research. Through an open approach that cuts across sectors, market capitalizations, and geographies, Cathie believes that ARK can identify large-scale investment opportunities in the public markets resulting from technological innovations centered around multiomic sequencing, robotics, artificial intelligence, energy storage, and blockchain technology. As Chief Investment Officer (“CIO”) and Portfolio Manager, Cathie led the development of ARK’s philosophy and investment approach and has ultimate responsibility for investment decisions. Prior to ARK, Cathie spent twelve years at AllianceBernstein as CIO of Global Thematic Strategies where she managed over $5 billion. Cathie joined Alliance Capital from Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund she co-founded, which in 2000, managed approximately $800 million in global thematic strategies. Prior to her tenure at Tupelo Capital, she worked for 18 years with Jennison Associates LLC as Chief Economist, Equity Research Analyst, Portfolio Manager and Director. She started her career in Los Angeles, California at The Capital Group as an Assistant Economist. Cathie received her Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude, in Finance and Economics from the University of Southern California in 1981. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770476942564-FLWLF67BBXZSHVSRUH4E/image-asset.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Aditya Agarwal Aditya Agarwal is a General Partner at South Park Commons based in San Francisco. He was the CTO and VP of Engineering at Dropbox where he scaled the engineering team from 25 to 1000. Before Dropbox, Aditya co-founded Cove—a company that was building modern collaboration software. Prior to Cove, Aditya was one of Facebook’s first engineers. He helped build the first versions of key products like Search, NewsFeed and Messenger. He then became Facebook’s first director of Product Engineering, overseeing engineering for products like NewsFeed, Profile, Groups and Events. Aditya served on the boards of FlipKart—India’s leading e-commerce company, Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, and the Anita Borg Institute. He is also an active investor and advisor to Silicon Valley startups. In his spare time, Aditya likes to listen to techno music, read, travel and most of all, hang out with his two children. Aditya holds a bachelor's and master's degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1673295681574-63F3J72ZY6MSGZ0RO7M6/Greg+Becker+Headshot+-+2022.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Greg Becker Greg has been a champion of the innovation economy since he joined SVB in 1993 as a banker to fast-growing technology companies. Today, he is the president and CEO of the world’s only financial institution dedicated to the innovation sector around the globe. Greg has led the expansion of the company, now the nation’s 14th largest bank in the US, to include four primary businesses serving the innovation sector: global commercial banking, venture capital and credit investing, private banking and wealth management, and investment banking. Under Greg’s leadership, SVB has achieved considerable growth. SVB joined the S&P 500 in 2018 and has been named one of the best banks in America, one of the fastest growing public companies in the US, and one of the best places to work. SVB has been included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the last four years and is consistently among the Top Corporate Philanthropists in its headquarters’ region. Working with employees, clients, and partners, Greg has also prioritized investments and initiatives to increase diversity and inclusion at SVB and across the innovation ecosystem, foster economic development and support community well-being. Prior to taking on the SVB President and CEO role in 2011, Greg held a variety of leadership positions, including co-founding SVB Capital, which manages some of the world’s top-rated venture fund-of-funds and direct investment funds. Greg is a Class A Director for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and since 2016 has been a member of TechNet’s executive council, which he chaired from 2020-2022. He is also a member of the executive board of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which he chaired from 2014-2017, and serves on the One Mind at Work Guiding Council. Greg earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Indiana University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1771258418038-IOMRTBFFJ4E2YI96MD2Y/image1+%281%29.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Adam Bain Adam Bain is a co-founder and managing partner at 01 Advisors, a venture capital firm built by former at-scale operators to invest in and partner with the next generation of great operators. Adam is the former Chief Operating Officer of Twitter, where he was responsible for the company’s go-to-market, revenue product, and operations teams. Previously, Adam was the President of the Audience Network at News Corp and ran product teams at Fox Sports and The Los Angeles Times. In 2012, Adam ranked #1 in Ad Week’s annual listing of the top 50 indispensable talent. In 2013, Adam was inducted into The American Advertising Federation Hall of Achievement. In 2015, Adam was named one of the 30 United Nations Women “He for She” Impact Champions to help advance gender equality. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479682201-TTDQSSFO5VWAIBZ6Z16K/Jason+Hirschhorn+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Jason Hirschhorn Jason Hirschhorn is a media pioneer and digital content entrepreneur who has held senior leadership roles across music, television, and digital platforms, including MTV Networks, Viacom, Sling Media, MySpace, and REDEF. He has also served on influential boards and advisory groups such as the Sundance Institute, Pandora and MGM Studios helping guide the future of storytelling and media innovation. Known for anticipating cultural shifts, Hirschhorn blends strategic rigor with creative instinct to build platforms and narratives designed for scale, relevance, and connection. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479863835-JCHPVRTDH8JBEGGL9CIK/Steve+Jang+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Steve Jang Steve Jang is the Founder and Managing Partner of Kindred Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm with over $900M in fund assets-under-management. Named to the Forbes Midas List twice recently as one of the world’s top 50 venture capital investors, Steve has invested in over 100 startups as a VC and angel investor across AI, frontier tech, hardware, and crypto. His portfolio includes early AI investments in Perplexity and Fal, both of which he serves on the board, and earlier venture investments in Coinbase and Uber, where he was a founding advisor and angel investor. To date, Kindred has backed 11 unicorns so far with two IPOs. Before founding Kindred Ventures, Steve co-founded several consumer technology startups, including Bitski (acquired by Phantom), and SoundTracking (acquired by Rhapsody). Earlier, he co-created imeem, the pioneering on-demand music streaming service, which reached over 100 million users before its acquisition by MySpace. He also supports filmmakers and produces independent films that have been featured on Apple, Netflix, and Amazon, such as Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, a Sundance-premiered documentary now on Netflix, and Vitalik, a documentary about Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770478664890-NTQASLV3R7TL6GA4ND5C/Thomas+Laffont+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Thomas Laffont Thomas Laffont is the Co-Founder of Coatue, one of the world’s largest technology investment platforms. He leads the firm’s private investment platforms across both early-stage and growth, partnering with some of the most enduring and impactful companies of the last two decades. Thomas began his career at the Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, where he represented artists in Motion Picture and Television. Thomas holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Yale College and lives in California. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1644453825045-31ZLBHPJHEKI6F9Y4II4/Applebaum-Anne.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Anne Applebaum Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist and commentator on geo-politics, Anne Applebaum examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape. Informed by her expertise in Europe and her years of international reporting, Applebaum shares perspectives on, and the far-reaching implications of, today’s volatile world events. In July 2020, Penguin published Anne’s book ‘Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism’. Anne was later named one of “The Top 50 Thinkers of the Covid-19 Age” by Prospect magazine. She is a Senior Fellow of International Affairs and Agora Fellow in Residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. For many years, Applebaum wrote a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post which is syndicated internationally. She is now a staff writer at The Atlantic. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479935655-E4UQ6YJHWTI3A9PG88GI/Vanessa+Larco+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Vanessa Larco Vanessa Larco co-founded Premise, a modern VC firm focused on agentic technology. She is focused on backing technical founders with an eye for consumer behavior change at the pre-seed and seed stages. Prior to starting Premise, Vanessa was a General Partner at NEA from 2016 to 2025 where she focused on Enterprise SaaS and Consumer Internet investing. Vanessa has led investments in Kindred, Mejuri, Assembled, Greenlight, and others. She was also a board observer at Robinhood from 2017 through the IPO in 2021. Prior to joining NEA, she held senior product management roles at Box, Twilio, Playdom (acq. Disney) and XBOX Kinect. She also started a mobile gaming company, Funloop which was acquired in 2013. Vanessa holds a BS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has been on the Board of Advisors for Georgia Tech’s College of Computing since 2019. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770480022618-W1T4F2EMUUMLI9GFSM65/Eric+Ries+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Eric Ries Over the last two decades, Eric Ries’s ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method, and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup; The Leader’s Guide; and The Startup Way. As a founder, he has put his own ideas into practice with The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; the Lean Startup Co, which teaches and supports the implementation of Lean Startup; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU, where the ideas that became the Lean Startup method were forged. On his podcast, The Eric Ries Show, he talks to guests including world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives working to build profitable companies for the long-term benefit of society. Eric has served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School and IDEO. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children. Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great In Incorruptible, Ries reveals the hidden forces that cause even great organizations to drift from their original reason for being. Then he shows how to design businesses that can withstand that pressure. Drawing on two decades of work with founders, CEOs, and investors, he exposes the flaws that make companies vulnerable to short-term thinking. He offers a blueprint for "mission-controlled" organizations that can grow, prosper, and endure without losing their soul. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770587375932-502ZK427ZG6FWNDN5FL8/headshot2025+%282%29.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Molly O'Shea Founder of Sourcery, one of the fastest-growing new media platforms in technology, spanning a weekly investing and technology newsletter and podcast interview series with a large and highly engaged following on X. Over the past seven years, Molly has built her career investing across family office multi-asset strategies and multi-stage venture capital portfolios, with a singular focus on technology. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1669662444542-K11L83H788XP64WO6X50/Gore+Headshot.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Al Gore Former Vice President Al Gore is a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management, and the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis. He is also a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and a member of Apple Inc.’s board of directors. Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980, and 1982 and to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as the 45th vice president of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years. He is the author of the #1 New York Times best-sellers "An Inconvenient Truth" and "The Assault on Reason," and the best-sellers “Earth in the Balance,” "Our Choice: A Plan To Solve the Climate Crisis," "The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change," and most recently, The New York Times best-seller "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” He is the subject of the documentary movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won two Oscars in 2006 -- and a second documentary in 2017, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770479571031-RKBIWANMXGY3HJA6WFTK/Brent+Weinstein+Headshot.jpeg Day 1 Speakers - Brent Weinstein Brent Weinstein serves on the senior leadership team at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where he oversees multiple business areas including Digital Media, Podcasts, Games, Talent Business Ventures, and Speakers. He also is involved in the agency’s M&A and investment activities, with a specific focus on setting strategy for the business areas he oversees, and, in partnership with the Technology division, co-manage CAA’s Intell data team. Weinstein is known for over two decades of success creating precedent-setting business models and partnerships across traditional and digital media. As Candle Media’s Chief Development Officer since 2022, Weinstein led the company’s corporate and business development efforts, including developing impactful partnerships for Candle divisions such as Hello Sunshine and Moonbug. Over two decades at United Talent Agency, Weinstein helped build and led UTA’s Digital Talent, Podcasting, Ventures, Live Events, Heartland, and Emerging Platforms businesses, rising to become Partner and the agency’s first-ever Chief Innovation Officer. He also co-managed UTA’s Insights and News divisions, helped drive strategy and operations for its Global Music and Speakers businesses, and played a key role in the agency’s M&A initiatives. Weinstein graduated from the University of the Southern California with a degree in Business Administration and earned his Law Degree from the University of San Diego. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770480356915-ZYGZPWD3OW4IYUZHM70O/Nick+Kim+Headshot.png Day 1 Speakers - Nick Kim Nick is a general partner at Upfront Ventures. He focuses on early-stage investments in hard tech and national infrastructure sectors like advanced manufacturing and robotics, industrial automation, energy and utilities, aerospace and defense, and more. Prior to joining Upfront, Nick was at Crosscut Ventures leading seed investments. Before Crosscut, Nick was an early employee at Warby Parker, where he was the general manager of the Home Try-On business. Nick also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Human Ventures and as an investor with the Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital’s student-run investment fund. Nick graduated with a degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from The Wharton School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1705964896348-4EG0JUXPALUKMOK0MOOZ/Aditi+Maliwal.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Aditi Maliwal Aditi Maliwal is a General Partner at Upfront Ventures, investing in early stage companies across financial technology and enterprise software. Aditi partners with founders at their earliest stages of inception and supports them throughout the stages of company building. While at Upfront, she has partnered deeply in this way with Arcade, Clair, Renew, Stem, WriterAI and ZestAI amongst others. Before joining Upfront, Aditi was at Google, first on the Corporate Development team leading acquisitions across various sectors including AI, commerce and fintech, and then on the Next Billion Users team building products for users in emerging markets. Prior to Google she worked in early stage venture at Crosslink Capital where she invested in Chime, BetterUp, and PowerToFly among other companies. She began her career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, in the technology banking group. She has a B.A. from Stanford University. She has lived between Mumbai, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Singapore and San Francisco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770585935640-N5XD9MK55FMBL4Y5DP1E/Jacques+Sisteron+%281%29.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Jacques Sisteron Jacques Sisteron joined the Upfront investment team in 2022. Before Upfront, Jacques worked at Apeel as a manager in the Strategy division, where he focused on bringing their materials-based shelf-life extension product to market in the EU, developing new pricing models, and prioritizing and quantifying value for new product introductions. Jacques graduated early cum laude from Cornell with a B.S. in Applied Economics & Management, focusing on environmental, resource, and energy economics. He received a Cornell merit scholarship for his Master of Engineering in Materials Science and Engineering after obtaining his B.S. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1576279326223-I96ZNTA0AWY0I946STE5/Abrams_JJ.jpg Day 1 Speakers - JJ Abrams JJ Abrams is the founder of Bad Robot Productions. A writer, director and/or producer of television series such as Felicity, Alias, Lost, Castle Rock and Westworld and films such as Super 8, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the Mission: Impossible, Star Trek and Cloverfield franchises, Abrams most recently directed, produced and co-wrote (with Chris Terrio) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In addition to his film and television work, Abrams also conceived the novel S. with writer Doug Dorst, which became a New York Times Best Seller in 2013. He is currently producing The Play That Goes Wrong, which premiered on Broadway in April of 2017 and is currently on a nationwide tour, as well as Derren Brown’s Secret, which premiered on Broadway September of 2019. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath, co-CEO of Bad Robot, live in Los Angeles and have three children. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1771031028357-4VKXV66XYR0INK9J9MIJ/Upfront_HamatWatt.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Hamet Watt Hamet Watt is the Founder and CEO of Share Ventures, a venture lab and fund backed by Google and Amazon that builds and invests in AI-driven companies at the intersection of human performance and frontier technology. A contrarian investor and company builder, Hamet previously co-founded MoviePass and served as a Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group. He is a former Board Partner at Upfront Ventures and was an Entrepreneur in Residence at True Ventures. He has launched multiple ventures that were later backed by tier-one firms. Through Share Labs, he architects companies from first principles, leveraging data, AI agents, and autonomous workflows to reimagine how innovation happens. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1575576440049-TCF46PENQUYAX1RXWBMU/Ballmer_Steve.jpg Day 1 Speakers - Steve Ballmer Steve Ballmer is the chairman of the L.A. Clippers, founder of USAFacts, and co-founder of the Ballmer Group. He is the former CEO of Microsoft. Entering his sixth year as chairman, the Clippers hold a 250-160 (.610) record during five-season tenure. Ballmer passionately believes in leading the Clippers forward with a focus on on-court success, a fan-first philosophy, and consistent improvements in all aspects of team business, positively impacting the communities we touch. Ballmer became Microsoft’s CEO in 2000, having served for 20 years in roles as president, senior vice president of sales and support, senior vice president of systems software, and vice president of marketing. He was the company’s first business manager. During his tenure at Microsoft, the company pioneered personal computing and democratized enterprise computing, growing from a small start-up to a company that today employs more than 110,000 people. When Ballmer retired from Microsoft in 2014, it had grown to almost $80 billion in revenue and was the third most profitable company in the United States. He remains a significant shareholder. Along with his wife Connie, Ballmer serves as Co-founder of Ballmer Group, a which supports efforts to improve economic mobility for children and families across the United States who are disproportionately likely to remain in poverty. They focus this philanthropic work deeply in Washington state, Los Angeles, and southeast Michigan where Steve grew up. Ballmer is the Founder of the non-partisan and non-profit USAFacts.org civic initiative, the most comprehensive, understandable, single-view online source of American government data. USAFacts provides a well-visualized look at data and trends in US spending, revenue, demographics, and policy outcomes – aimed at helping Americans ground our debates in facts. He has taught at Stanford University on this topic as well as on business leadership. Ballmer was born in March 1956, and grew up near Detroit, where his father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Company. Ballmer earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from Harvard University. He worked for two years at Procter & Gamble Company as an assistant product manager and attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business before joining Microsoft. He and Connie live in Bellevue, Washington. https://summit.upfront.com/uf-register daily 0.75 2026-03-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/6933e106-9905-4b67-bd93-fbd8d569195a/diego-rivera-5ozgGaLw0Sc-unsplash.jpg 2026 Registration https://summit.upfront.com/2026-investor-summit daily 0.75 2026-02-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/b0e6fe67-6d54-4309-90df-a29941d9204a/Nya+Studios.webp Day 1 Schedule https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/9ba8b68e-e891-454d-b906-d8a8d4a5b993/Sponsors.png Day 1 Schedule - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://summit.upfront.com/2026-tech-summit daily 0.75 2026-02-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/b13da82d-aa3d-4762-b530-1b7b3530ba67/Nya+Studios.webp Day 2 Schedule https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/fe0637ee-589c-4b37-8d0d-50850b521ff5/Sponsors.png Day 2 Schedule https://summit.upfront.com/faq-0 daily 0.75 2026-02-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1671498003265-ANSEXA644JPNJYMDJ6FQ/lukas-souza-KYGUR4g5FgE-unsplash.jpg FAQ Day 0 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/c61afeea-9129-4ac4-ad2a-5be3f612dfc4/2026+AGM+Map+-+Chaplin+Studios.png FAQ Day 0 - Make it stand out Annual Meeting Directions https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/6f6acc1d-fc32-4243-ae9a-91cc48e3970b/2026+Upfront+Summit+Map.png FAQ Day 0 - Make it stand out Upfront Summit Directions https://summit.upfront.com/faq-day-2 daily 0.75 2026-02-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1671498003265-ANSEXA644JPNJYMDJ6FQ/lukas-souza-KYGUR4g5FgE-unsplash.jpg FAQ Day 2 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/9f84f452-22ce-4d35-a9c0-5ecf5624d546/2026+Upfront+Summit+Map.png FAQ Day 2 - Make it stand out Upfront Summit Map https://summit.upfront.com/faq-day-1 daily 0.75 2026-02-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1705027015411-UVMRI0NGFKS4170YQAAX/lukas-souza-KYGUR4g5FgE-unsplash.jpg FAQ Day 1-2 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/5a40c7c1-aff2-4c4a-bc42-0d186b08be70/2026+Upfront+Summit+Map.png FAQ Day 1-2 - Make it stand out Upfront Summit Map https://summit.upfront.com/day-2-speakers daily 0.75 2026-02-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343817524-B3I5SM3ILI2FSOG2IQG9/Clay_Bavor.png Day 2 Speakers - Clay Bavor Clay Bavor is a co-founder of Sierra, which helps businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI. A visionary product leader and technologist, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he spearheaded some of the company’s most innovative efforts as head of Google Labs, including augmented and virtual reality, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Earlier, Clay oversaw the product and design teams for Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive, shaping tools used by billions worldwide. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343817524-B3I5SM3ILI2FSOG2IQG9/Clay_Bavor.png Day 2 Speakers - Clay Bavor Clay Bavor is a co-founder of Sierra, which helps businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI. A visionary product leader and technologist, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he spearheaded some of the company’s most innovative efforts as head of Google Labs, including augmented and virtual reality, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Earlier, Clay oversaw the product and design teams for Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive, shaping tools used by billions worldwide. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770432288128-05J9GLHQOO2HFVASHRML/Rick+Caruso.jpeg Day 2 Speakers - Rick Caruso Rick J. Caruso is a Los Angeles civic leader and real estate developer whose public service and private-sector work have shaped the city for decades. He began his civic career as the youngest Commissioner in Los Angeles history at the Department of Water and Power, where he resolved a decades-long water lawsuit that expanded the city’s water supply while protecting the environment. He later served as President of the Los Angeles Police Commission, leading a comprehensive overhaul of the LAPD and recruiting Chief William Bratton—an effort that helped drive crime to its lowest levels in 50 years. In the private sector, Caruso is the founder of Caruso®, the company behind landmark destinations such as The Grove, one of the highest-grossing shopping centers in the country. Following the devastating 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, he founded Steadfast LA, a civic nonprofit dedicated to accelerating recovery and rebuilding through public-private partnerships, reflecting his longstanding commitment to pragmatic, results-driven leadership for the city. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770345199197-ED9TZYXWONOVPAN335BI/Barry+Diller.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Barry Diller Barry Diller is the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and the Chairman and Senior Executive of Expedia Group. From 1995 to late 2010, Mr. Diller served as the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer of IAC. Since December 1992, beginning with QVC, he has served as chief executive for a number of predecessor companies engaged in media and interactivity prior to the formation of IAC. From October 1984 to April 1992, Mr. Diller served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fox, Inc. and was responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company in addition to Fox's motion picture operations. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343344264-OS3L5QKQOOFTUC6SXNNM/Harley+FInkelstein.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Harley Finkelstein Harley Finkelstein is an entrepreneur and the President of Shopify. He founded his first company at age 17 while a student at McGill. Harley completed his law degree as well as his MBA at the University of Ottawa. He received the Canadian Angel Investor of the Year Award, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, was inducted into the Order of Ottawa, and received the King Charles III Coronation Medal. From 2014 to 2017 Harley was on the Board of Directors of the C100, and from 2017 to 2020 he was on to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). He is currently on the Board of Directors of the National Retail Federation, Operation Hope, and the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation. Harley recently co-founded Firebelly, a modern high-end tea brand, and created Big Shot, a project and podcast that archives the stories of the greatest Jewish entrepreneurs of the last century. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1740022103675-YU0DZNQML4C2NDZ61NFE/Prince+Harry+Headshot+-+Misan+Harriman.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Prince Harry Prince Harry is a humanitarian, mental health advocate, environmentalist, and military combat veteran. His work is dedicated to creating positive and lasting change for communities and the planet, particularly in advancing conversations around resilience and healing. He is the co-founder of the Archewell Foundation, whose mission is to show up and do good. The Foundation focuses on social impact initiatives, including digital safety and education, all under the umbrella of protecting our collective mental health. Prince Harry is also the founder of the Invictus Games, an international adaptive sporting event that celebrates wounded service members and veterans from 25 nations. Since 2021, he has served as Chief Impact Officer at BetterUp, the largest mental health and coaching startup in the world, and alongside his wife became investors in Ethic, a sustainable investing platform. In that same year, he was asked to join a panel of experts at the Aspen Institute's Commission for Information Disorder. In 2023, he was named a New York Times best-selling author for his memoir, Spare. Having left the UK in 2020, Prince Harry resides in California with his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and their two children, Archie and Lili. Together, they remain dedicated to building a more compassionate, equitable world for future generations. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770433071163-FIE0LWDOTHHCQ9MWPSDF/Brendan+Foody+-+Mercor+CEO+%281%29.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Brendan Foody Brendan Foody is the co-founder and co-CEO of Mercor, one of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley’s history. Under his leadership, Mercor has become a trusted partner to leading AI companies and built a network of tens of thousands of expert professionals who help train frontier AI models for top labs and enterprises. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770432626619-2QHRUDUDU6JZCSSZXHR7/071819_Valor_Portraits_Chicago_IL-1574-Edit%252B%2525282%252529.webp Day 2 Speakers - Antonio Gracias Antonio is a proven investor and entrepreneur who partners with many of the defining founders and CEOs of our time as they seek to reimagine what is possible while making the world better. As Founder, CEO, and CIO of Valor Equity Partners, Antonio oversees one of the leading growth-focused investment firms in the US with an estimated $55 billion in AUM as of December 31, 2025. Antonio is recognized as an impactful and thoughtful contributor to the strategy and operations of businesses across industries. Notably, he served as a Director of Tesla from 2007 to 2021, helping take the company public and acting as Lead Independent Director for eight years. Antonio plays an important role in helping numerous Valor investments innovate and succeed, including serving on the boards of, among others, SpaceX, Chaos Industries, and Zipline. A longtime advocate for AI’s potential beginning with his 2013 investment in DeepMind and, more recently, xAI, Antonio leads Valor’s efforts to identify and invest in AI-driven companies to enhance competitive positions, drive product innovation, and add value to customers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770344447289-GQY0NSPC74QR7NA4TUKB/Van+Jones+%281%29.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Van Jones Van Jones is a U.S. media personality, entrepreneur and world-class changemaker. Jones has a rare track record of bringing people together to do hard things – in areas as diverse as clean energy solutions, criminal justice reform and racial inclusion in the tech sector. In 2007, Van was the primary champion of the Green Jobs Act, signed into law by George W. Bush. In 2009, he worked in the Obama White House as the Special Advisor for Green Jobs. In 2018, he helped pass the FIRST STEP Act, signed into law by Donald Trump; the New York Times calls that legislation the most substantial breakthrough in criminal justice in a generation. In 2021, Jones was the first recipient of Jeff Bezos’ Courage & Civility Award. He has since founded Dream Machine Innovation Lab and launched RAPPORT.co, which uses A.I. to increase firms’ EQ. A Yale Law School graduate, Van is a CNN host, an Emmy Award-winning producer, a 3X New York Times best-selling author and the creator of the Van Jones Substack. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770616456193-YFVCJXMPOFQIJQEYEXVK/MK+Headshot+45.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Michael Kratsios Michael Kratsios is President Donald J. Trump’s chief science and technology policy advisor. As the thirteenth Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael oversees the development and execution of the Nation’s science and technology policy agenda. He leads the Trump administration’s efforts to ensure American leadership in scientific discovery and technological innovation, including in critical and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology. In the first Trump administration, he served as the fourth Chief Technology Officer of the United States at the White House and as Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering at the Pentagon. Prior to the White House, Michael invested in, advised, and built technology companies in Silicon Valley. A South Carolina native, Michael graduated from Princeton University and served as a Visiting Scholar at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343092930-P9V8PEZT2S4N3KCN017V/image-asset.png Day 2 Speakers - Ben Lamm Ben Lamm is the Co-Founder and CEO Of Colossal Biosciences, the world’s first de-extinction company. He is a serial technology entrepreneur driven to solve the most complex challenges facing our planet. For over two decades, Ben has built disruptive businesses that future-proof our world. In addition to leading and growing his own companies, he is passionate about emerging technology, science, space and climate change. Prior to Colossal, Ben served as the founder and CEO to a number of companies, including Hypergiant, an enterprise AI software company focused on critical infractures, space, and defense acquired by Trive Capital; Conversable, the leading conversational intelligence platform that helps brands reach customers through automated experiences acquired by LivePerson; and Chaotic Moon, a global creative technology powerhouse acquired by Accenture. He was also the Co-founder of Team Chaos, a consumer gaming company acquired by Zynga. Ben is a fellow and on the Board of Trustees at the Explorers Club, whose mission is to promote the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural, and biological sciences. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1737051888777-MMCVOZNMFBHBCJGBBCDD/image-asset.jpeg Day 2 Speakers - David Baszucki David Baszucki is the founder and CEO of Roblox. His vision is to build a platform that enables shared experiences among billions of users. The company has been widely recognized for its innovation and vision under Baszucki’s leadership. TIME named Roblox one of the “100 Most Influential Companies,” and it has been recognized by Fast Company for innovation on their “Most Innovative Companies” and “Most Innovative Companies in Gaming” lists. Roblox was also recognized as an innovative workplace on Fast Company’s “Best Workplaces for Innovators” list and for its technical innovations on Fast Company’s “Innovation by Design” list. Previously, David founded Knowledge Revolution, where he and his brother Greg created “Interactive Physics,” a leader in educational physics and mechanical design simulation software. David graduated from Stanford University as a General Motors Scholar in Electrical Engineering. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770433239228-408WTD6Y5HYZR3Q860XS/AL-Vertical.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Alfred Lin Alfred Lin is a Partner at Sequoia Capital, working with founders from idea to IPO and beyond. He partners with companies across various industries, including consumer marketplaces, fintech, robotics, and healthcare. He sits on the boards of Airbnb, DoorDash, Citadel Securities, Clay, Cobot, Formation Bio, Found, Houzz, Kalshi, Nominal, Zipline, and more. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770344264411-QIFZOUSV7CV4WK8MFQAY/Matt+Mahan.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Matt Mahan Matt Mahan is the Mayor of San José, running for Governor to get California back to basics. Raised in Watsonville by working-class parents, a public school teacher and a postal carrier, Matt went on to Harvard, where he graduated with honors and served as student body president. After college, he spent a year in Bolivia building irrigation systems with family farmers, then returned to San José to teach on the city’s East Side through Teach for America. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770345601259-6V1IM1XKP4Z41Z9X203L/Geoff+Headshot.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Geoff von Maltzahn Geoff von Maltzahn, PhD is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lila Sciences, the world’s first scientific superintelligence platform and autonomous lab for life, chemistry, and materials science. He is among the most successful scientific entrepreneurs of his generation. Listed as an inventor on over 200 patents and pending applications, his technologies underpin more than 10 companies integrating biology and AI to transform human health and sustainability. Geoff’s groundbreaking companies have achieved over $10b in public and private market capitalization and include Generate:Biomedicines, Quotient Therapeutics, Tessera Therapeutics, Indigo Agriculture, Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), and Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB). Geoff was awarded a PhD from MIT; an MS in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego; and an SB in chemical engineering from MIT. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1772056752903-2A9GR1PHLHJPOOIINXE8/image-asset.jpeg Day 2 Speakers - Chris Paul On the court, Chris Paul was a force to be reckoned with, a fierce competitor, and one of the most talented, respected NBA players of all time. Off the court, he’s a father, husband, compassionate philanthropist and businessman, who has built a robust brand and made a huge difference in his community, all while creating a powerful legacy. He is greatly respected by his peers as a leader both in and outside of basketball. After leaving Wake Forest University (who retired his jersey in March 2013) at the end of his sophomore year, Chris was chosen by the New Orleans Hornets as the fourth pick in the 2005 NBA draft, which led to NBA Rookie of the Year honors, and the first of his twelve All-Star selections. Chris first joined the Los Angeles Clippers in 2011 becoming the face of the franchise and helped to lead the Clippers to their first ever Pacific Division title in 2013. After six years with the Clippers, Chris joined the Houston Rockets in 2017 and helped the team win a franchise-record 65 games in his debut season. Chris spent the 2024-25 season playing with the San Antonio Spurs where he played in and started 82 games – a remarkable feat ending the season turning age 40. He had previously played with the Golden State Warriors, Phoenix Suns, and Oklahoma City Thunder. In his final 21st NBA Season, Chris wore number 3 for the Los Angeles Clippers. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina native is a four-time NBA First Team selection, a seven- time All NBA Defensive First Team selection, a twelve-time NBA All-Star, a four-time NBA assist leader, and a six-time NBA steals leader, who won MVP honors at the 2013 All-Star game. He is also a two-time gold medal winner with Team USA at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. Chris and the Phoenix Suns became 2021 Western Conference champions and advanced to the 2021 NBA Finals where they competed against the Milwaukee Bucks. He ranks second place on the NBA all-time career assists and steals lists. He is the first player in league history to record 20,000 points and 11,000 assists in his career. He was named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team as one of the 75 greatest players in NBA history. In 2021, Chris ended his tenure as President of the National Basketball Players Association, which began in August 2013. He played an instrumental role in making key decisions including the landmark decision to provide health insurance to retired players. Chris currently serves on the Board of Directors for the NBPA Foundation and the Brotherhood Crusade. He is an Advisory Board Member for College Track Los Angeles and co-owner of The Basketball Tournament (TBT) and The Soccer Tournament (TST). His memoir, Sixty-One: Life Lessons from Papa, On and Off the Court, is a New York Times best-selling powerful and unexpected story of family, faith, tragedy, and life's most important lessons. Chris’s business partnerships and investments include the Jordan Brand, State Farm Insurance, AT&T TGL Golf and Jupiter Links, Angel City FC, TBT – The Basketball Tournament, Turner Impact Capital, PlayersTV, Good Eat’n, Koia, 1916 company, Koia, Greenfly, JustEgg, Buoy Hydration, Eastside Golf, Move Insoles, Umaro Foods, and more. Chris teamed up with Turner Impact Capital to raise awareness for the importance of affordable housing for working-class families. He's also an investor in the Turner Multifamily Impact Fund, which aims to invest, preserve and enrich existing multifamily properties in densely populated, ethnically diverse, underserved urban communities. Chris’s production company, Ohh Dip!!! Productions, creates content across multiple platforms. Ohh Dip!!! produced the three-part ESPN docuseries Chapter 3, which provides a behind-the- scenes look at Chris’s decision to leave the L.A. Clippers and join the Houston Rockets. Chris served as an executive producer of the ESPN Sports Emmy-nominated documentary, Crossroads, featuring a high school lacrosse team’s journey in overcoming adversity. He executive produced The Game Changers, an award-winning 2018 documentary about plant-based eating, and Quibi’s 2020 Blackballed, the inside story of Donald Sterling and the L.A. Clippers. He executive produced The Day Sports Stood Still, a documentary from director Antoine Fuqua and Imagine Documentaries about sports shutting down due to Covid-19 for HBO and streaming on HBO Max. Chris narrated the documentary, Big House, The Pearl & The Triumph of Winston-Salem State, which aired on the CBS Sports network. Chris appeared in a sports-themed episode of Nickelodeon’s animated show, Blaze and the Monster Machines. He executive produces the ESPN+ Why Not Us series including Why Not Us: NC Central Men's Basketball, Why Not Us: FAMU Football, Why Not Us: Southern Dance, Why Not Us: Howard Golf, and Why Not Us: Grambling Dance. In addition, he executive produced PlayersTV’s Front Office, a series featuring a behind the-scenes look at athletes making strategic investments in their fans’ business ideas. Chris joined the voice cast for the upcoming animated feature Sneaks, which centers around a pair of misplaced sneakers that are lost in New York City and must find a way to get back to their sole mates. Ohh Dip!!! co-produced Bloomberg Quicktake’s How I Got Here, an in-depth weekly one-on-one interview hosted by Paul and featuring guests from the various worlds he touches—sports, business, entertainment and politics. In Spring 2025, Ohh Dip!!! partnered with Words + Pictures forming a joint venture to launch Ohh Dip!!! Entertainment, a new full-service media production company specializing in non-scripted and scripted content. The new venture aims to produce content across basketball, sports and broader entertainment culture and is backed by a substantial investment from Words + Pictures, which is led by founder and CEO Connor Schell and part of the North Road Company. His CP3 Basketball Academy is a premier training academy in Winston Salem and Greensboro, NC. The Academy provides skill development, basketball education, and leadership opportunities for young athletes of all skill levels. Chris also hosts youth clinics and camps, as well as an elite camp for top high school and college students from around the country. Chris is an advocate for growing the game of basketball for females and recently added three CP3 Girls AAU teams to its successful organization, the CP3 Flame (ages 15, 16, 17). In 2022, Chris became a minority owner of the Indian Premier League's Rajasthan Royals. In 2018, he became part owner of the Winston-Salem Dash, a minor league baseball team in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Chris hosted his inaugural Club 61 Leadership Alliance in the summer of 2019. The mission of the annual Club 61 is to provide experiences and opportunities for young adults to develop leadership skills. Chris and his family established the Chris Paul Family Foundation in 2005, which continues to provide resources that enrich and strengthen underserved communities across the country. Leveling the playing field in education, the foundation provides technology opportunities for children in underserved communities across the United States. The foundation supports numerous organizations including the Boys & Girls Club, Shoes That Fit, Vision to Learn, the Brotherhood Crusade, Leaps n Boundz and Feed The Children. The foundation donated $2.5 million to Wake Forest University to support their basketball program and transform the men's and women's basketball clubhouses with expanded and enhanced locker rooms, nutrition resources, and treatment areas. The new Chris Paul Locker Room for the men’s team is named in his honor. The foundation’s impact in local communities has earned Chris the NBA Community Assist Award five times. He has also received the 2016 ESPYs “Humanitarian of the Year” award, the 2016 Mannie Jackson Human Spirit Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for his community efforts, and most recently the inaugural Kobe and Gigi Bryant Advocacy Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of girls' and women's basketball, and advocacy for the WNBA. Chris continues to be a vocal champion of HBCUs and in December 2022, he finished the degree he started at Wake Forest, graduating from Winston-Salem State University. He also partnered with Harvard Business School to bring its Entertainment, Media and Sports program to North Carolina A&T and future HBCUs, creating the Special Topics in Management course to develop a pipeline for students pursuing careers in those industries. He has raised awareness through his HBCU Sneaker Tour and the sneakers were auctioned off with all of the proceeds donated to the men’s and women’s basketball programs of each school represented. He launched HBCU voting initiatives to encourage students to vote this past election. He partnered with Sour Patch Kids and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to create The Mischief for Change Scholarship, a college scholarship fund with a $1 million commitment over the next five years for students attending HBCUs. The Chris Paul Basketball Academy hosted HBCU CON, an event for elite players from historically Black colleges and universities that will be offering instruction embedded with skill development from former and current NBA professionals, professional scouts, and training for male and female HBCU student-athletes aspiring to play professionally. In 2022, he was appointed to President Joe Biden's advisory board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Chris continues to host the annual Chris Paul HBCU Tip-Off and HBCU Challenge in partnership with The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Together with Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, Chris launched the Social Change Fund United dedicated to investing in and supporting organizations focused on empowering communities of color and advocating for the human rights of all black lives. Chris hosted Nickelodeon's 5th Annual Kids' Choice Sports Awards in 2018. He teamed up with Nickelodeon in Houston for Worldwide Day of Play, a nationwide initiative to promote active, playful lifestyles in today’s young generation. Chris is a Co-Chair of When We All Vote, a new national, nonpartisan not-for-profit shaping the promise of democracy through voter registration and participation. Chris is married to Jada Paul and they have two children; a daughter, Camryn, and a son, Chris II. They reside in Los Angeles, CA. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343986463-0Z8N81THCDDCY0115FTE/david+singleton.jpg Day 2 Speakers - David Singleton David Singleton is the co-founder and CEO of Dreamer, a platform where anyone can discover, build, and enjoy personal agentic apps. Before founding Dreamer, David spent 7 years as Chief Technology Officer at Stripe, where he led the company’s engineering and design teams through a period of massive global scale. Prior to Stripe, he spent 11 years at Google, serving as Vice President of Engineering and leading development across mobile platforms, product experiences, and partnerships with major hardware manufacturers. Earlier in his career, he built operating systems for early smartphones at Symbian. A lifelong builder, David is passionate about making technology more accessible and personal. He grew up in Belfast, studied computer science at Cambridge, and now lives in San Francisco with his family. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343575477-6D2OQ9YZBMTNWJGQGGV0/Laela+Sturdy.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Laela Sturdy Laela Sturdy is managing partner at CapitalG, the multibillion-dollar independent growth fund of Google parent company Alphabet. At CapitalG, Laela has invested in some of the world’s most consequential companies, including Stripe, Duolingo (DUOL), Gusto, Lovable, UiPath (PATH), Waymo, and Whatnot. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1676591085179-MA6G7BFOHJNODL0H0J2G/Al+Gore+Headshot.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Al Gore Former Vice President Al Gore is a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management, and the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis. He is also a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and a member of Apple Inc.’s board of directors. Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980, and 1982 and to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as the 45th vice president of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years. He is the author of the #1 New York Times best-sellers ""An Inconvenient Truth"" and ""The Assault on Reason,"" and the best-sellers “Earth in the Balance,” ""Our Choice: A Plan To Solve the Climate Crisis,"" ""The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change,"" and most recently, The New York Times best-seller ""An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” He is the subject of the documentary movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won two Oscars in 2006 -- and a second documentary in 2017, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change."" https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770434113830-JYPPQ2DIDYPWRVSTCCYU/Michael+Broukhim.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Michael Broukhim Michael Broukhim is the General Partner of Deep33, an Israel-focused deep-tech investment firm backing breakthrough innovation across advanced energy, AI infrastructure, quantum computing, and robotics. Deep33 partners with exceptional founders building frontier technologies with the potential to transform critical industries and deliver durable advantage. Michael is also the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FabFitFun, a leading direct-to-consumer lifestyle membership and commerce platform that reaches millions of women through discovery, wellness, and community. Michael also teaches entrepreneurship and media ethics at the University of Southern California, focused on how technology, incentives, and information shape markets and society. He holds degrees from Harvard University and Stanford Law School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770345372309-AUAOM4JOT1V6VFQTSPTS/Ira+Ehrenpreis.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Ira Ehrenpreis Ira Ehrenpreis is Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners, a leading impact investing venture capital firm, currently managing more than $1.5 billion of capital. DBL invests in companies that can deliver top-tier financial returns, while simultaneously driving social or environmental change. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1771267915187-0WH0VU3QI0OX3DM7ZK6P/headshot+shirin_699364570001B41928430001.jpeg Day 2 Speakers - Shirin Ghaffary Shirin Ghaffary is a technology reporter for Bloomberg News covering artificial intelligence. She chronicles the industry in her award-winning weekly newsletter, Q&AI. Previously, Ghaffary was a senior tech correspondent at Vox Media and Recode. Prior to that, she's worked at TechCrunch, the San Francisco Chronicle, and BuzzFeed News. Ghaffary was raised in Silicon Valley, went to UC Berkeley, and spent several years in her early twenties working at an enterprise software startup. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770658810990-CJVV5X37JE8MEFSSIOLR/Joe-Green.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Joe Green Joe Green is currently Chair of Matt Mahan for Governor, supporting a campaign centered on pragmatic problem-solving, public safety, and rebuilding trust in California government. He is also Chair and Co-Founder of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, a philanthropic initiative advancing rigorous research, clinical access, and evidence-based policy in mental health and psychedelic medicine. He is a native of Santa Monica and an alumni of Samohi. Green is a social entrepreneur, technologist, and civic leader focused on strengthening democracy and expanding opportunity through innovation. He co-founded Causes, one of the earliest large-scale platforms for online civic engagement and philanthropy, which enabled millions of people to support nonprofits and social movements through digital networks. He later co-founded NationBuilder, a community-organizing and campaign platform used globally by nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and political movements. In 2013, Green co-founded FWD.us, a bipartisan advocacy organization created with leaders from the technology community to advance immigration reform, education opportunity, and policies that support the American knowledge economy. As the organization’s founding president, he helped bridge Silicon Valley and Washington around long-term national challenges. Joe is also co-founder of Treehouse, a mission-driven real-estate and community development company dedicated to creating human-centered, neighborhood-scale housing and gathering spaces that strengthen social connection. Across his career, Green has worked at the intersection of technology, policy, and community building—seeking to translate innovation into institutions that expand participation, dignity, and shared prosperity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770432971442-6YPOA0E7PG9HM9KU8E89/Colin+Narya+%281%29.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Colin Greenspon Colin Greenspon is a Co-Founder and Partner at Narya Capital, a venture firm focused on backing founders building hard, consequential companies, often in places and sectors traditional venture has ignored. Narya invests across advanced manufacturing, defense and aerospace, energy, biotech, and software, with a core belief that the next generation of category-defining companies will be built at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and real-world production. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770433317533-4RYN6IBWB651WJ5IRBCW/headshot2025.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Molly O'Shea Founder of Sourcery, one of the fastest-growing new media platforms in technology, spanning a weekly investing and technology newsletter and podcast interview series with a large and highly engaged following on X. Over the past seven years, Molly has built her career investing across family office multi-asset strategies and multi-stage venture capital portfolios, with a singular focus on technology. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1705969508632-FXRWW18E298VS7X7CCCX/Scout+Brisson.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Scout Brisson Scout Brisson is the CEO of De Soi, a line of sparkling non-alcoholic apéritifs, co-founded by Katy Perry and Morgan McLachlan. She brings a unique blend of entrepreneurial tenacity and industry prowess to the non-alcoholic beverage space. With her leadership marked by passion, extensive brand understanding and a growth mindset, Scout has propelled De Soi to the forefront of the alcohol-free, ready-to-drink market, redefining the ritual of unwinding for the modern millennial consumer. Prior to spearheading De Soi's launch, Scout forged her path in strategy and operations, as a management consultant at McKinsey, as well as at M13, a consumer venture capital firm, launching companies as part of their in-house incubator. Most recently, Scout co-founded a better-for-you CPG company, DEUX Foods. Scout holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from MIT. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770432468813-ATTQPVR0EAF4MN6FQL9A/Jason+Rapp.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Jason Rapp Jason Rapp is an investment banker in Los Angeles and co-founder of Whisper Advisors, the boutique M&A and strategic advisory firm. Since founding the firm in 2018, Jason and his partners have advised dozens of founders as they pursue their M&A, capital and strategic goals. Prior to Whisper Advisors, Jason was a partner at Science Inc., the incubation firm. Prior to that, Jason was a senior executive in Barry Diller's IAC corporation (Nasdaq:IAC), having run the M&A group and then as CEO of Gifts.com. Before joining IAC, Jason was an executive at The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770343235275-DLEBK8XPD4KRYAH6LDM0/Cody+Simms.png Day 2 Speakers - Cody Simms Cody is Managing Partner at MCJ, a venture firm backing founders driving the transition of energy and industry and solving the inevitable impacts of climate change. MCJ’s portfolio includes Crusoe, Base Power, Heirloom, Twelve, The Nuclear Company, and other leaders advancing clean energy abundance, infrastructure resilience, and new industrialism. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770433135475-Y9RV8KSN6AA22F81DSCD/Sundeep+Headshot.jpeg Day 2 Speakers - Sundeep Peechu As a Managing Partner and founding member of Felicis, Sundeep led Felicis' investments in several companies such as Mercor, Coalition, Plaid, and Komodo Health, as well as the following companies that have gone public: Ginkgo Bioworks, Matterport, Recursion Pharma, and Wish. Before joining Felicis in 2010, Sundeep joined Intel through the acquisition of Sarvega, where he was an early employee responsible for the security infrastructure design. Sundeep holds degrees in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from Stanford. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1772055956603-KBSLWOM89DGV7WV8YPE9/KobieFuller+%281%29.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Kobie Fuller Kobie brings to Upfront deep expertise in enterprise SAAS and frontier technologies including AR/VR. Kobie joined Upfront in June 2016 after having previously been an investor at Accel. Prior to Accel, Kobie was the Chief Marketing Officer at LA-based REVOLVE, one of the largest global fashion e-commerce players. Earlier in his career, Kobie helped found OpenView Venture Partners and was an investor at Insight Venture Partners. Kobie graduated from Harvard College. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1676000208964-G4EDHMELHVQC8T6GLQ4H/Nick+Kim.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Nick Kim Nick is a general partner at Upfront Ventures. He focuses on early-stage investments in hard tech and national infrastructure sectors like advanced manufacturing and robotics, industrial automation, energy and utilities, aerospace and defense, and more. Prior to joining Upfront, Nick was at Crosscut Ventures leading seed investments. Before Crosscut, Nick was an early employee at Warby Parker, where he was the general manager of the Home Try-On business. Nick also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Human Ventures and as an investor with the Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital’s student-run investment fund. Nick graduated with a degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from The Wharton School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770771482177-L0NQ08Y9J4XDQEF23NGL/Mark+Suster_Primary.jpg Day 2 Speakers - Mark Suster Mark Suster is a general partner at Upfront. He previously was the founder & CEO of two successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was sold to Salesforce.com where Mark became VP, Products. Prior to being a founder, Mark was a software developer at Accenture where he lived and worked in Europe, Japan and the U.S. Mark is a graduate of UCSD and has an MBA from the University of Chicago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1706575919187-F8B35XGX4S1G9LMJEE77/Alexandra+Debow.jpeg Day 2 Speakers - Alexandra Debow Alexandra Debow is the Co-Founder/CEO of swsh, the social app that strengthens the relationships that matter to you. She is a Canadian born and raised in Hong Kong. Previously, she worked on GGV Capital's infrastructure investment team. She worked at Alibaba's Entrepreneurial Program in HangZhou. During Covid, she built Alive Vibe, a virtual events marketplace for Gen Zs. In Shanghai, she built Entrepreneurs in Action, a founders’ dinner series, The Entrepre女ers Network, a women entrepreneurs podcast network, and The WHY WAIT? Collective, China’s first Gen-Z led women entrepreneurship conference. Alexandra studied Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon and Data Science at NYU Shanghai. https://summit.upfront.com/2026-agm daily 0.75 2026-02-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/75e8d5ba-f572-4707-87e2-02473cc03a52/BVH_ChaplinDNGL2613-Edit.webp 2026 Upfront Annual Meeting https://summit.upfront.com/breakouts-1 daily 0.75 2026-02-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770482351727-R0A88UKRU6MVHPCQH5VV/Waseem+Alshikh+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Waseem Alshikh Waseem Alshikh is a seasoned technology leader and entrepreneur with extensive experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. He is the co-founder and CTO of Writer, a leading generative AI platform built for enterprises that enables companies to create content that is consistent and on-brand. Platform used by companies such as Marriott, Braintree, UnitedHealthcare, Accenture, Intuit, UiPath, HubSpot, Spotify, Hilton, Uber and Deloitte. Additionally he has held senior positions at iMENA and Danat eVentures. Waseem holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Beirut Arab University and a Master’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Damascus Polytechnic for Electronics. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770482351727-R0A88UKRU6MVHPCQH5VV/Waseem+Alshikh+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Waseem Alshikh Waseem Alshikh is a seasoned technology leader and entrepreneur with extensive experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. He is the co-founder and CTO of Writer, a leading generative AI platform built for enterprises that enables companies to create content that is consistent and on-brand. Platform used by companies such as Marriott, Braintree, UnitedHealthcare, Accenture, Intuit, UiPath, HubSpot, Spotify, Hilton, Uber and Deloitte. Additionally he has held senior positions at iMENA and Danat eVentures. Waseem holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Beirut Arab University and a Master’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Damascus Polytechnic for Electronics. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770482855422-DZBEBIMXJR4LFOKCRDXZ/Jim+Belosic+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Jim Belosic Jim Belosic is the CEO and Founder of SendCutSend, a software-driven manufacturing company modernizing American fabrication through speed, accessibility, and automation. Under his leadership, SendCutSend has surpassed a $110 million annual revenue run rate, serving more than 300,000 customers, including 59% of the Fortune 500. A serial entrepreneur for over 25 years, Jim has founded and scaled multiple ventures across software, marketing, and manufacturing. His rare combination of software expertise and hands-on fabrication experience enabled him to design a vertically integrated manufacturing platform that delivers custom parts in as little as 24 hours. Jim is focused on expanding domestic manufacturing capacity by building a distributed network of high-tech facilities across the United States. His emphasis on customer experience and continuous improvement has helped SendCutSend achieve a 92 Net Promoter Score and earn recognition as #131 on the 2024 Deloitte Technology Fast 500. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1771626605940-DQEBKLE7TKOZUU5OIJVE/Jordan+headshot.jpg Breakouts - Jordan Black Jordan Black is the CEO and Co Founder of Senra Systems, a manufacturing technology company modernizing wire harness production. Jordan began his career as a technician repairing roller coasters at the Santa Monica Pier, where he developed a hands on appreciation for complex electromechanical systems. After internships at Ford and Enerpac, he became deeply focused on rebuilding American manufacturing culture and attracting technical talent back into the workforce. Following graduation, Jordan joined SpaceX as a manufacturing development engineer for wire harnessing, supporting new product introduction across Dragon, Falcon, and Spacesuit programs. He was later promoted to become the youngest manager in Avionics, leading a research and development team and traveling globally to identify and improve suppliers. After five years solving supply chain and production challenges, he left SpaceX to build a new approach to manufacturing. Within weeks of incorporating, Senra was building harnesses out of an apartment. Three years later, the company operates multiple factories in Southern California and supplies major aerospace primes and emerging industrial leaders. Senra is now focused on scaling skilled assembly into high throughput production using software driven manufacturing and automation, with plans to deploy factories globally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1738777660856-308MHHL5EOV5T0AFBN2M/image-asset.jpeg Breakouts - David Aung David joined the Investment Program in 2018 and currently oversees the Venture Capital and Real Assets programs. Prior to joining the City of San José, he spent six years at KKR as a principal in the global risk strategies team. Before KKR, David spent six years at Trust Company of the West as a vice president focused on portfolio analytics. He holds an MS, Claremont Graduate University and a BA, University of California, Los Angeles. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770511631481-LEWTKA1I9CEEMWBW05PT/Eve+Bodnia+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Eve Bodnia A mathematician and physicist, Bodnia earned a Ph.D. in quantum information and algebraic topology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. At UCSB, her thesis was under her chair advisor Dirk Bouwmeester, Jon McCammond, Ben Bazin and Michel Devoret, who shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for “the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” She also worked on neuroscience and brain development at UCSB with collaboration of Google Quantum AI, which helped inspire her pursuit of AI reasoning that does not rely on the text-based models used in many LLMs. She also built expertise in topology, the study of geometric properties and spatial relations, which has proved essential in understanding how to handle large information sets of almost infinite size. Bodnia earned her undergraduate degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied with the physicists Robert Cahn and Daniel McKinsey. She considers Cahn, a global leader in elementary particle theory, to be her “true mentor.” Bodnia is the author or co-author of 22 academic papers on dark matter, quantum mechanics, and particle physics. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770483149547-9TC8DH6DGO1OIC1VLCOT/Erica+Brescia+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Erica Brescia Erica has spent most of her career as a founder and executive operator prior to joining Redpoint in early 2021. Most recently, she served as COO of GitHub, where she was brought in to mature and scale the company following the Microsoft acquisition. She was fortunate to be a part of the GitHub Copilot launch as well as many others and drove global business expansion among other aspects of the business. Prior to GitHub, she co-founded Bitnami, which went through Y Combinator in 2013 and was acquired by VMware in 2019, as well as BitRock prior to that. She has also served on the board of the Linux Foundation, which shepherds over 200 core open source projects (including Linux and Kubernetes), since 2016. At Redpoint, Erica focuses on bringing her nearly 20 years of open source, infrastructure and developer tools experience to bear to support founders from the earliest days of building. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770483914153-6O1GFHAPM2JNM24MLD22/Ivan+Burazin+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Ivan Burazin Ivan Burazin co-founded Codeanywhere, a pioneer in cloud development, back in 2009. Concurrently, he established Shift, a premier developer conference in Europe, which was later acquired by Infobip—a global communications cloud giant—in 2021. Following the acquisition, Ivan served on the executive board of this 4,000-person company and as the Chief Developer Experience Officer, where he oversaw global developer-oriented operations. In 2023, Ivan co-founded Daytona, a fast-growing open-source platform addressing the limitations of AI coding agents by enabling them to programmatically and securely interact with runtime environments. Backed by $7M in funding, Daytona empowers developers—from startups to Fortune 500 companies—to utilize agents to their full potential. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484180543-EVN0L9F9SVVVQSH1G1QS/Ian+Cinnamon+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Ian Cinnamon Ian Cinnamon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Apex, a high-rate configurable satellite bus platform manufacturer named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025. Backed by over $500 million from the world’s best investors, Apex’s first satellite bus set a world record as the fastest cleansheet design to production spacecraft operating in space. Focused on meeting the needs of the rapidly expanding space industry and advancing critical national security missions like Golden Dome, Apex provides scalable platforms to both the commercial and government sectors. Apex's Los Angeles production facility can deliver satellite buses to customers in weeks rather than the industry standard of months or years, with the capacity to produce over 200 buses per year at full scale. Prior to his work with Apex, Ian founded Synapse, a company specializing in artificial intelligence for security and defense. Ian led the company through acquisition by Palantir. Earlier in his career, Ian co-founded Superlabs, which was sold to Zynga, where he served as Director of Product after the acquisition. Ian is a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree and an alumnus of Y Combinator. He received his B.S. from MIT and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/679bf4ec80fd695f12ee4eb8/67a24f089aed2261ae38a55d/1771625517796/ Breakouts https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484246180-6VWKKAU8K4SETIVXFDMU/Miles+Clements+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Miles Clements Miles Clements joined Accel in 2009 and focuses on software, consumer internet, and online marketplace businesses. He helped lead Accel's investments in Atlassian (TEAM), Bird, DJI, Hudl, lynda.com (acquired by LinkedIn), MessageBird, Podium, SeatGeek, and UiPath. Miles also helps manage the firm's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and robotics initiatives through his work with DJI and ongoing leadership of the DJI-Accel SkyFund. Previously Miles worked in product management at lynda.com. Miles is from New Orleans, Louisiana and graduated from the University of Virginia and Harvard Business School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484367903-4SU4Z56ZORA2ZZ6UG27S/Lukas+Czinger+Headshot.jpeg Breakouts - Lukas Czinger Lukas Czinger serves as Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Divergent Technologies, Inc. and Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of CZV, Inc. Czinger Vehicles is an American car company driving the future of the performance automotive industry. Divergent is the creator of the Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPSTM), the world’s first end-to-end digital manufacturing platform enabling rapid design, additive manufacturing, and automated assembly. Headquartered in Torrance, California, Divergent is reshaping the future of defense, aerospace, and automotive production. Lukas joined Divergent in 2017 as a member of the founding team and has held various technical and leadership positions over the past 8 years, expanding his responsibility from leading the automation and robotics department to overall company operations. Notable achievements include hiring the core management team, leading the development of the Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPSTM), inventing the company’s fixtureless robotic assembly system, leading the company’s capital raising, and directing the company’s strategy to serve the aerospace and defense market at scale. Lukas has been recognized by Forbes as a leader in Manufacturing & Industry on the 30 Under 30 list for 2023 and is a recognized speaker on the future of digital manufacturing and the transformation of the American industrial base. He further serves as a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to Divergent, Lukas led a career in investment banking at Centerview Partners. Lukas graduated from Yale University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484509354-7AYAPUNPZC0B8MT3CBNB/Sam+D%E2%80%99Amico+Headshot.png Breakouts - Sam D’Amico Sam D’Amico is the founder and CEO of Impulse - a San Francisco based hardware startup focused on driving electrification through next-gen home appliances. Impulse's first product is a battery-integrated induction stove that solves common installation challenges, unlocks impressive performance, and provides grid energy storage. Sam comes from an extensive background in hardware engineering, and has worked on consumer tech across Meta and Google. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484565489-G0O4LA6NRON8SFZO7QD0/Russ+Dsa+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Russ Dsa Russ is the cofounder and CEO of LiveKit, the voice AI platform behind ChatGPT, Character.ai and ElevenLabs. He started his first company in the 2007 batch of YC and was the 2nd frontend engineer at Twitter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484652475-B6NQ409P2IYY9OH9PPMQ/Matthew+Gallagher+Headshot.JPG Breakouts - Matthew Gallagher Matthew Gallagher is the founder of MEDVi, a leading telehealth provider that has redefined the ceiling for startup velocity. Under his leadership, MEDVi became one of the fastest-growing companies in history, scaling from $0 to $1 Billion in ARR in just 14 months. A pioneer in hyper-efficient organizational design, Matthew has built MEDVi into a case study for modern operational excellence. Despite its billion-dollar scale and serving hundreds of thousands of patients nationwide, the company operates with an unprecedented lean structure, supported by only a handful of contractors and one employee. This model leverages a sophisticated ecosystem of AI, API-driven technology, strategic partnerships, and operational automation to dominate health markets and provide excellent service to patients. Matthew’s expertise lies at the intersection of technical infrastructure and rapid market penetration. By democratizing access to clinicians through a seamless, consumer-first digital experience, he has positioned MEDVi as the primary challenger to traditional healthcare delivery models. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770616064615-3ANV3U9K7TOBE3CAJ973/Isaiah+Granet.jpg Breakouts - Isaiah Granet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484804489-W6CJRLZ81QVL7NVN05JM/Hannan+Happi+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Hannan Happi Hannan Happi is the CEO and co-founder of Exowatt. A mechanical engineer by training, Hannan studied at the Technical University of Munich and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Before founding Exowatt, Hannan held leadership and engineering roles at General Electric, Siemens, Accenture, and Tesla. He later co-founded and led Volansi, a vertical take-off and landing drone startup focused on autonomous logistics, which was acquired by a major defense firm. Now based in Miami, Florida, Hannan and the Exowatt team are focused on solving one of the most urgent infrastructure challenges of our time: delivering scalable, dispatchable, onsite energy solutions that keep pace with the digital world’s accelerating demands. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770484862030-9DWCNGVQSG38EMOSSV8Q/Carl+Hoiland+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Carl Hoiland Carl Hoiland is the Co-founder and CEO of Zanskar, a Utah-based company deploying proprietary AI to discover and develop geothermal resources at unprecedented speed, cost, and scale. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and later an Activate Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Carl's industry experience includes geothermal, shale gas, and critical minerals exploration. Drawing on his research and exploration background, and inspired by a growing scientific consensus that the vast majority of geothermal resources remain undiscovered, he co-founded Zanskar to meet surging demand for carbon-free baseload power. In just five years, Zanskar has grown to become the most successful geothermal explorer in U.S. history and is now advancing a gigawatt-scale pipeline of greenfield geothermal assets across the western United States. Zanskar's recent Series C financing, led by Spring Lane Capital with participation from Obvious Ventures, USV, Lowercarbon Capital, and many others, brought its total equity funding to >$180 million and marked the largest ever investment into AI discovery for geothermal resources. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770760561019-K4PKQCNA6IL2L7MGV7IA/Richard+Kerris+Headshot.png Breakouts - Richard Kerris Richard Kerris is the vice president and general manager of media and entertainment at NVIDIA. He is responsible for the industry strategy, business development, product management, developer rela@ons, and marke@ng of media and entertainment. With a career spanning Alias|Wavefront, Apple, Lucasfilm and other major tech brands, Richard has extensive experience driving product development and marke@ng with a focus on bringing new ideas to life. At Alias|Wavefront, he was director of Maya technologies and led the teams that brought the groundbreaking 3D soKware to manufacturers and new plaLorms such as Macintosh. At Apple, he was senior director of developer rela@ons and managed the ProApps teams for Final Cut Pro, Logic and Aperture. At Lucasfilm, he served as chief technology officer, managing research and development, IT and informa@on services. Richard has given keynote addresses at NVIDIA GTC, Asia Broadcast and China Joy Expo and delivered mul@ple Apple Worldwide Developers Conference presenta@ons with the company’s CEO. He serves on the Bay Area Board of the Visual Effects Society and is an ac@ve member of the Society of Mo@on Picture and Television Engineers. He is also an accomplished photographer and musician. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770485047179-3R9HV0B5O4R4I65VF4WX/Justin+Lopas+Headshot.jpeg Breakouts - Justin Lopas Justin leads operations and technology at Base Power. Prior to starting Base, Justin led Manufacturing at Anduril, a leading defense technology company serving the US and allied nations. Prior to Anduril, Justin led manufacturing & operations for SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, building the South Texas launch site from the ground up. As the COO at Base, he brings that same hands-on approach to software, hardware, and operations, ensuring reliable power when people need it most. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770485119151-QKKNFDIVIH43SA8LQ25N/Nathan+Mintz+Headshot.jpg Breakouts - Nathan Mintz Nathan Mintz is the co-founder and CEO of CX2, an electronic warfare startup based in El Segundo, California. He previously founded and led Spartan Radar, which was acquired by John Deere in 2024, and Epirus, a defense technology unicorn. Prior to entrepreneurship, Nathan spent 13 years as a systems engineer at Boeing and Raytheon. Nathan holds a BS and MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University and is the inventor on 10 U.S. patents. He is also an active advisor to and investor in multiple venture capital funds and early-stage technology startups. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770485282208-35FZ32A7VLZFKYWJJGOG/Tori+Shivanandan+Headshot.png Breakouts - Tori Shivanandan Tori Shivanandan is the Chief Operating Officer of Radiant, where she leads a team of world-class engineers and business leaders who are building the world’s first factory-built portable nuclear microreactor. Tori brings extensive experience in operations, consulting, and management across a variety of sectors and industries, giving Radiant the jump-start it needed to deliver on its mission to build the world's first portable mass-produced nuclear microreactors. Prior to joining Radiant three years ago, Tori was a consultant at Happy Returns and supported PayPal’s $350M acquisition of the business. In the first eight years of her career, Tori climbed the ranks of industrial supplier McMaster-Carr, leading teams numbering in the hundreds. Tori earned her B.A.Sc. from Carnegie Mellon University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1771625659777-DE7VSGLZRVD0OCEOP20T/Screenshot+2026-02-20+at+2.13.53%E2%80%AFPM.png Breakouts - Michael Smayda Dr. Michael G. Smayda is founder and CEO at Fortastra Corporation. Previously, he was co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Hermeus Corporation, a venture-backed high-speed aircraft company, where he led internal product development as well as external business development, requirements generation, and congressional engagement. Prior to Hermeus, Michael spent 5 years at SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle working aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics for booster entry, descent and landing, design criteria, systems engineering, and hardware design for Falcon Heavy. Dr. Smayda has a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia and a BS in the same from Cornell University. He lives in Hermosa Beach, CA. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770699260357-B0F08ZBQRGJKXNTJA84R/IMG_7298.jpeg Breakouts - Auriel Wright Auriel Wright has pioneered production machine learning systems throughout the modern AI era—from advanced computer vision modeling at Harvard to generative AI at Google Brain and autonomous agentic modeling for Gemini. Most recently at Google DeepMind, she led Product for Gemini's self-coding Agentic Modelling effort, driving the development of next-generation reasoning and agentic capabilities on Gemini that enable transformative real-world applications. Her contributions span foundational computer vision to state-of-the-art generative AI across Google Brain and DeepMind. She developed high-precision human detection models that underpin essential technologies, including Pixel Real Tone, Google Search, and Waymo's autonomous vehicle perception systems and has even earned a Cannes Lion award for her work on the Pixel Real Tone. She subsequently directed human alignment initiatives for leading generative models like NanoBanana and Imagen, impacting billions of users globally and enabling advanced human image editing capabilities. Her research on supervised fine-tuning data and rater optimization has been published at NeurIPS. Before joining Google, Auriel was a Y Combinator-backed founder (W20). She is now an active angel investor in AI infrastructure and the rapidly evolving agentic systems space. She holds a Computer Science degree from Harvard. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770485675271-LJC087C4CZIVU5YPNRIK/KobieFuller.png Breakouts - Kobie Fuller Kobie has been a General Partner at Upfront since 2016, with a core investing focus in SaaS, marketing technology, and emerging technologies including VR and AR. His notable Upfront investments include Bevy, Wave, Cordial, MetaCX and Valence, which he also founded. Prior to Upfront, Kobie was an investor at Accel, helped found OpenView Venture Partners, and was an investor at Insight Venture Partners; over his career he invested early in companies including Exact Target (sold to Salesforce for $2.5B) and Oculus (sold to Facebook for $2B). He was also the Chief Marketing Officer at LA-based REVOLVE, one of the largest global fashion e-commerce players. Kobie graduated from Harvard College. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1739222263038-K9C6CTXHN8W7E2CX3V02/Nick+Kim-2.jpg Breakouts - Nick Kim Nick is a general partner at Upfront Ventures. He focuses on early-stage investments in hard tech and national infrastructure sectors like advanced manufacturing and robotics, industrial automation, energy and utilities, aerospace and defense, and more. Prior to joining Upfront, Nick was at Crosscut Ventures leading seed investments. Before Crosscut, Nick was an early employee at Warby Parker, where he was the general manager of the Home Try-On business. Nick also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Human Ventures and as an investor with the Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital’s student-run investment fund. Nick graduated with a degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from The Wharton School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1739222394287-319FBA1HQH8HLDLFSHQ4/Aditi+Maliwal-2.jpg Breakouts - Aditi Maliwal Aditi Maliwal is a General Partner at Upfront Ventures, investing in early stage companies across financial technology and enterprise software. Aditi partners with founders at their earliest stages of inception and supports them throughout the stages of company building. While at Upfront, she has partnered deeply in this way with Arcade, Clair, Renew, Stem, WriterAI and ZestAI amongst others. Before joining Upfront, Aditi was at Google, first on the Corporate Development team leading acquisitions across various sectors including AI, commerce and fintech, and then on the Next Billion Users team building products for users in emerging markets. Prior to Google she worked in early stage venture at Crosslink Capital where she invested in Chime, BetterUp, and PowerToFly among other companies. She began her career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, in the technology banking group. She has a B.A. from Stanford University. She has lived between Mumbai, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Singapore and San Francisco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770927302166-5OA5HLDPN00S3VNP5KWH/Sarah+Square+Small.jpg Breakouts - Sarah Sclarsic Sarah is a Founder and Managing Partner at Voyager. She has been building and investing in transformative technology companies since 2009 and brings expertise in mobility, biotech, food and materials production, and carbon removal. Prior to Voyager, she co-founded car-sharing firm Getaround and served as the founding business director of Modern Meadow, the world’s first company making bio-fabricated leather. Sarah is a technical advisor to Frontier, the $1B fund to purchase carbon removal. Sarah is a graduate of Harvard and of MIT, where she researched energy technologies and carbon removal technologies. She lives in New York City. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770486032604-B0PTEP05TIQRPKP78WPL/Jacques+Sisteron.png Breakouts - Jacques Sisteron Jacques Sisteron joined the Upfront investment team in 2022. Before Upfront, Jacques worked at Apeel as a manager in the Strategy division, where he focused on bringing their materials-based shelf-life extension product to market in the EU, developing new pricing models, and prioritizing and quantifying value for new product introductions. Jacques graduated early cum laude from Cornell with a B.S. in Applied Economics & Management, focusing on environmental, resource, and energy economics. He received a Cornell merit scholarship for his Master of Engineering in Materials Science and Engineering after obtaining his B.S. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c7d65dfb2cf796504d166e2/1770485994075-5M9VJ1Y4Q9MNJ3M42L4G/Peter+Zakin.png Breakouts - Peter Zakin Peter joined Upfront in 2023 after spending most of his career as a founder. Before Upfront, Peter co-founded Macro, a workflow automation company, and Hyper Travel, a corporate travel solution that was acquired by Tradeshift in 2016. Prior to Hyper Travel, Peter was an early employee at Venmo, where he worked as a software engineer and product manager. He graduated from Princeton University with degrees in Philosophy and Computer Science. 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